The Knights of the Black Earth

by Margaret Weis; Don Perrin

  King and queen were accompanied by Archbishop Fideles, whose religion was once viewed as being a rival to that of the Goddess. The archbishop had worked hard to close the gap, was doing everything possible to make the two differing faiths compatible.

  Baroness DiLuna was also in attendance. This was her moment of triumph and she was just brazen enough to exhibit it. She would have some choice remarks today.

  Captain Cato, who had once served the late Derek Sagan, kept near the Royal Couple, watchful eyes scanning the crowd. John Dixter was also on hand.

  “That man hasn’t slept in seventy-two hours,” Warden said to himself.

  His comm buzzed in his ear.

  “What’ve you got?”

  “Operation Macbeth has been canceled.”

  “Did they find that missing major? What was her name— Mohini?”

  “No, sir. Or if they have, my source doesn’t know about it. The Navy’s changed all the codes. Everything appears to be back to normal.”

  “Not from where I stand,” Warden said, eyeing the obviously nervous Lord Admiral. “Something’s up. Keep digging.”

  The king’s secretary, D’argent, appeared at Warden’s elbow. The secretary announced that they were ready for the interview, hinted that His Majesty wasn’t to be kept waiting.

  Warden advanced, bowing, the cameraman following every move. The king and queen turned to greet him. Pleasantries were exchanged; offers of fruit, champagne were politely refused. Their Majesties sat down. Warden—on invitation—sat down. Cams zeroed in. Warden had opened his mouth to ask his first question when his quick eye noticed Admiral Dixter suddenly go rigid with attention. The admiral’s gaze became the abstracted look of a man listening to a commlink connection.

  The Lord Admiral spoke only a few words, then touched Cato’s arm, said a few brief words to him. The captain’s face remained impassive. He gave a sharp nod, gathered his men about him with a gesture, and walked up to the king.

  “Your Majesty.” Cato’s tone was low, cool, urgent. “You and the queen must return to the limojet now.”

  Warden watched attentively. The king glanced swiftly at the Lord Admiral. Expression anxious and grim, the admiral nodded, confirmed whatever silent question the king had asked. Dion rose, gave his hand to the queen. Astarte extended her apologies calmly, managed to make this all look as if she were returning to the limojet to retrieve a forgotten lipstick.

  Warden was on his feet, hastening after the king, the cameraman at his side.

  The Royal Guard closed their ring of steel around the Royal Couple, husded them back to the safety of the limojet.

  “What’s happening?” Warden demanded, frustrated.

  A ripple of motion and a collective gasp from the crowd attracted his attention. His commlink buzzed.

  “You’re right, Mr. Warden. Something is up. The Navy’s gone on red alert around this planet! My source doesn’t know why.”

  “I do,” said James M. Warden.

  He stared in astonishment as a drop ship plummeted out of the blue, cloudless sky, thrusters firing to slow its descent.

  At first Warden thought the ship was intending to land in the midst of the million or so people gathered to watch the ceremonies—in which case the carnage and death would be horrendous. He was directing his cameraman not to miss that shot, when he realized he had misjudged the entry. The drop ship was actually landing in a parking lot about one kilometer from the platform.

  An assassination attempt? Armed uprising? A publicity stunt?

  The king and queen were being hastily and unceremoniously bundled into the limojet. The dignitaries were bewildered, incensed, indignant, or hysterical; the Royal Guard swarmed the platform.

  Warden was in contact with all his camera crews, which were positioned at various sites throughout the city. “All of you, switch over to pick up that drop ship, except you, number twelve.” That was the main GNN long-range image enhancer camera. “You stay focused on the king.”

  Warden lifted his left hand, shoved back his suit coat and shirtsleeves, looked at his watch. He depressed a small button located on the side of the dial, saw a tiny flash of white light. He smoothed his suit coat, turned to his assistant.

  “Bring your cam. I’m going to try to get close enough for an interview.”

  Chapter 37

  When opponents present openings, you should penetrate them immediately. Get to what they want first, subtly anticipate them. Maintain discipline and adapt to the enemy in order to determine the outcome of the war.

  Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  “Touchdown in five, four, three—”

  Two and one were lost in the ear-shattering, spine-jamming, metal-screeching, bone-crunching landing. The drop ship rocked precariously, during which Xris could hear the PVC, strapped down in the center of the vehicle, shake and rattle. He had sudden visions of several metric tonnes of armor-plated tank breaking loose from its moorings, hurtling through the bulkheads, and careening about the cramped confines of the launch module.

  At least no one would worry about recovering the bodies. They’d just wash out the module’s insides with a fire hose.

  The shaking stopped. All was suddenly very silent, except for the hissing of the hydraulics attempting to level the tilting floor.

  Xris gave himself a moment to recover from the shock, took time to make a few minor adjustments to his system—red lights were going off up and down the length of his arm. Then, unstrapping himself, he pushed himself out of his seat, was amazed at the effort it took.

  “Everyone okay?” he asked.

  He had heard of people scared speechless, but this was the first time in his life he’d ever encountered that phenomenon. No one said a word, not even a bad one. Most sat in various frozen poses, white-knuckled hands clutching the arms of the chairs, sweat beaded on their faces, eyes wide and staring. Two, however, appeared to have enjoyed the ride.

  Jamil swiveled around to face them. “We’ve landed,” he announced. His handsome face was grinning; he rubbed his hands. “God! I miss my days in the Army sometimes. I’d forgotten what a rush that was!”

  Apparently Raoul agreed with him. The Loti was lying back limp in his chair. He looked up at Xris with lustrous eyes.

  “Wow!” Raoul whispered dreamily.

  But Xris had to help Tycho stand. The alien was in a deplorable state, shaking so badly he could barely get up out of his chair.

  “Not healthy for a sharpshooter,” Xris said. “Doc, can you give him something to calm him down?”

  “What do you suggest?” Quong demanded coldly. “A golden-beaded handbag or a string of pearls? I have both in my medical kit.”

  “Ah. Right. I forgot.” Xris started to take out a twist, noticed his own hand was far from steady. He went to check on Rowan.

  She was up and out of her chair, tottering but walking. She was headed, naturally, for the computer. She gave Xris a wan smile.

  “Now you know why I joined the Navy,” she said faintly.

  Quong came to assist her. He sat beside her at his own console, and they began to coordinate their search for the telltale negative wave signature.

  Xris glanced at the chronometer. They had arrived earlier than planned, earlier than the appointed time—according to the knights’ own countdown. But their unexpected and dramatic appearance might jolt the knights into action. Certainly Xris hoped it had jolted the Royal Guard.

  “Jamil, fire up the PVC Devastator. Hopefully we won’t need to use it. We can just blast the negative wave device to hell and back with the launch module’s lascannon. Tycho, go up in the turret, check the cannon out. Make sure it wasn’t damaged in the landing.”

  Tycho groaned, nodded, and—hanging on to the railing for support—dragged himself up to the gun emplacement located on top.

  “Harry, anything on the screens? What’s going on out there? And where did we land anyway?”

  Xris had originally cursed the fact that the drop ship had no windows, only outsi
de cams and vidscreens. He had since had reason to bless the foresight of the designer. He could only imagine what that harrowing, plummeting descent in the Elevator from Hell would have been like if they’d been forced to view the sights along the way.

  Harry switched on an array of vidscreens. The cams provided three-hundred-sixty-degree coverage of the terrain outside the drop ship.

  Xris looked out over what appeared to be—at first, startled glance—a veritable sea of gleaming metal.

  “We’ve landed in a parking lot,” Harry announced.

  Xris recalled the sound of screeching metal, the uneven, bumpy touchdown. A few hovercar owners were going to be extremely unhappy when they returned to the pancakes that had once been their vehicles.

  “Any activity?”

  “Choppers circling, but not getting too close. Probably won’t. We have surface-to-air missiles.”

  “Yeah, well, they’ve got air-to-surface missiles.”

  “I don’t think they’re going to be keen on using them. Look at this.”

  Harry adjusted a camera angle, pointed to a vidscreen. A few thousand spectators stared back, pointing and exclaiming and jostling for position in order to get a better view. They were alarmed and panicked now, but soon curiosity and the safety-in-numbers kind of euphoric courage that sweeps over a crowd would set in. The drop ship might survive a direct missile attack; it had already survived entry into the planet’s atmosphere. But it might fall to a mob.

  “Fire a few tracers over their heads. Well over their heads. Just enough to make them keep their distance,” ordered Xris.

  Tycho fired off the lascannon. Most of the people in the crowd flung themselves flat on the ground. The local police force had arrived on the scene, began doing what they could to clear people out of the area. At least, no one would be firing rockets at the drop ship anytime soon—not with the possibility of injuring untold numbers of innocent civilians.

  “Can you see the king?” Xris asked.

  Harry shifted camera angles.

  “That must be the dignitaries’ platform. There’s the Royal Flag. I’ll zoom in.”

  They had an excellent view of the backs of the Royal Guard. Xris detected what might have been a flash of red-golden hair in the midst of the ring of steel. And there was the Royal Limojet.

  “Looks like the king’s safe, for the time being,” Xris reported to the rest of the team. “They’re hustling him and the queen into the Royal Limo.”

  “Good!” Rowan breathed in relief. “They shouldn’t have to take him far to get him out of range.” She looked up at Xris, smiled shakily. “I’d say mission accompl—”

  “They’re not moving,” Harry reported, frowning.

  The king and queen were seated safely in the limo, the Royal Guard had taken their places on the outside, the crowd had been hastily cleared from the area, but the limojet wasn’t going anywhere.

  Xris took a look. “He’s right. They’re not moving.”

  “Maybe they’re waiting to see what we do,” Harry suggested.

  Xris snorted. “That is not standard procedure. When you’re guarding dignitaries and there’s some type of danger, you get them the hell out of there. You don’t wait around for the shooting to start.”

  Harry was studying his instruments. “It looks like— Yeah, I’ll be damned.”

  “What?”

  “Engine trouble. The limo won’t start. They’re running diagnostics on it now, but—”

  “They won’t find the cause,” Rowan interrupted, excited. “It’s the negative waves. I’m picking up the signature. The knights have turned the device on. The waves must be causing the engine to malfunction!”

  “At least that limo’s shielded, armor-plated. A lascannon couldn’t take the king out once he’s inside.”

  “No armor, no shields will protect him,” Quong said. “The negative waves will pass through unaffected.”

  “Damn!” Frustrated, Xris turned back to the screen. “The knights are in range. We’re too late to save the king. But maybe we can even the score.”

  “We are not finished yet, my friend,” Quong returned. “The signature is very, very weak. The knights haven’t brought the device up to full power. But Major Rowan is correct in her assessment of the negative waves damaging the limo. As you can see here by the spectrum analysis, the microwaves—weak as they are—have been able to cause interference with the power coupling lattice of the limojet’s engines.”

  Xris didn’t bother to look. He wouldn’t know a spectrum analysis if it smacked him in the face. “Good. That gives us a chance. Get a fix on the damn device and Tycho’ll take it out with the lascannon.”

  Rowan stared intently at her screen, made some rapid calculations, chewed on her lip. “My fix on the position is—”

  Whatever she said next was lost in a thundering, thumping blast. The engines of the PVC-28 Devastator fired, backfired, misfired, and finally—after a strangled cough—rumbled contentedly. A cloud of black, choking smoke filled the vehicle bay and began to seep into the rest of the drop ship. Raoul, who was inexplicably changing his clothes, bleated in indignation and waved a frantic hand.

  “This gunk is ruining my outfit!” he wailed.

  The tank’s engines cycled over from deafening roar to a head-splitting hum that caused Xris to hastily shut down his augmented hearing. Even so, the irritating whine made him grit his teeth.

  “Here are the coordinates!” Rowan shouted at him. “I’ve fed them into the computer! You should be able to bring it up on the screen!”

  Xris went back to the screens. Harry had his large finger planted on one of them.

  “There,” he said, and he shook his head. “That’s it. Got to be.”

  “You’ve made a mistake.” Xris turned back. “Rowan, reenter your data.”

  “No mistake, Xris,” Quong confirmed. “That’s it.”

  Xris looked back, took out a twist, clamped his teeth down on it hard. The negative wave device was located right smack in the center of an enormous forty-story luxury hotel that was standing right smack on the highway leading up to the temple. The hotel, the area around the hotel, the highway leading to and from the hotel were jammed with people.

  “Third-floor balcony,” Harry said.

  A blast from the lascannon would blow up the device . ..

  The front of the hotel ...

  And about five or six hundred men, women, and children, who would never know what hit them.

  “Tycho, get down here!” Xris said, frustrated. “Harry, goddam it, I need a closer look!”

  Harry was already ordering the computer to zoom in on the coordinates.

  “Holy shit!” he said reverently and in disbelief. He turned around, his eyes wide. “Xris, that can’t be right! That’s . . . that’s the GNN nightly news!”

  Yet the numbers Rowan had brought up were flashing complacently beneath the picture, assuring him that this was, indeed, the location of the negative wave device.

  A mobile unit of Galactic Network News.

  “Doc, get over here. There’s all sorts of equipment stuck out there on that third-floor balcony. You have any idea which of those things might be the device? If any?”

  Quong took a close look. Harry obligingly shifted camera angles, bringing each machine into close proximity. Xris, conscious of a wave of gardenia perfume roiling over him, sensed the presence of Raoul loitering nearby. The Loti glittered in gold, from head to toe.

  “I am now suitably dressed for the occasion,” Raoul announced happily.

  Xris grunted.

  Quong squinted, pursed his lips. He calmly placed his finger on the screen. “That’s it.”

  Simultaneously Raoul gasped, pointed a painted fingernail at the screen. “Her! That’s her!”

  “Son of a bitch!” Xris murmured. “Our friend from Canis Major, Dr. Brisbane. Quite a coincidence, her being here. And you say that’s the device, Doc? The machine to her right? It looks like an ordinary vid antenna. A bit longer
, maybe. How do you know that’s it?”

  Quong gave a rapid-fire explanation. “Such pieces of equipment are known as image enhancers. They are used to transmit and receive high-band radio waves. They act like radar, work with the vidcam and a computer to enhance the picture of the object, make it look clear and sharp, even on the outer fringes of the galaxy. Now, as you will note, there are ten image enhancers on that balcony. Nine of the enhancers are pointed at us, as they should be. We are the big news at the moment. But look—look at this one! It is pointed at the limojet.” Quong straightened. “At the king.”

  Xris was unconvinced. “Yeah, so? They’d be likely to keep one on the king, wouldn’t they?”

  “Of course! That is why this device is such excellent cover for them. But look at this, my friend—shielding! Why would a news crew put shielding around an image enhancer? I tell you, Xris,” Quong said stubbornly, “that is the device.”

  “And that’s the woman with no mouth!” Raoul’s painted nails were digging painfully into Xris’s good arm. “The female who was going to kill me!”

  Galactic Network News—a front for the Knights of Terra Nera? It didn’t make sense on the surface. And yet, in a way, in the subconscious depths of Xris’s mind, it was beginning to.

  “How long have we got before the device is fully operational?”

  “Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes,” Rowan answered.

  Xris considered. “We can’t blow it up from here, not without blowing up half of Ceres as well. We’re going to have to go inside the hotel to take them out. Harry, you and Tycho join Jamil in the PVC. Tycho, bring your sniper rifle. Quong, you and Rowan—”

  “Just a minute.” Rowan stopped him. “We might be able to interrupt the device’s signals by sending out radio waves on the same band—according to my calculations. ... Dr. Quong, what do you think?”