“And should he resist, my eminence?”
“Then you bring me his head on the point of your sword, admiral. I am placing ten ships at your disposal for this task. I have reason to believe that Inskaap is trying to leave the Domain with items of a highly sensitive and classified nature. When you find him, go through his possessions and bring those things directly to me. Is that understood?”
“Perfectly. And should our ships encounter hostiles, sir?”
Phatie stood and walked around his desk. He made a point of exaggerating his steps so his chest full of medals and decorations would produce a chilling harmony of sounds akin to breaking glass. He stood a meter in front of his admiral and raised a finger. “Then, Admiral Resuur, you will have the high honor of firing the first salvo in the war with the humans.”
“Praise Malguur!” the officer said.
“Destroy them all, admiral. I do not want any prisoners to bleed our resources dry. Do not negotiate, do not accede to any human demands. You follow Inskaap wherever his trail takes you, even if that path leads straight to Elber Prime and the Navy Headquarters building.”
Resuur pounded his chest again. The Piru Torgud was impressively bold with his orders and had given him almost free range to do what was necessary to bring the traitor Inskaap to heel. This was a glorious day for Canuure and the entire Malguur Domain. “As you wish,” he said.
“Oh, and Admiral Resuur,” Phatie said as he poked his finger into the man’s chest, “I will not tolerate failure on this mission. You use any means necessary to capture this thief. If you do not find him, then your name ascends to the top of my list.”
“Understood. Have no fear, sir, I will find him.”
Phatie waved a dismissive hand and returned to his desk. “Your ships await you, admiral.”
Janth Resuur pounded his chest for the third time and marched out of the office.
The dogs of war were unleashed.
Chapter 29
His trip had been uneventful. The crew of the cargo boat had pretty much left him alone with his thoughts and they had even brought him a few meals. The food was horrible and Inskaap had thrown most of it away.
When the captain of the merchant ship sent word that his transfer point was approaching within the hour, Inskaap started to repack his belongings. He left out a small dittybag and would pack that last.
He was sitting on his bunk contemplating his future when the two armed men came for him. They escorted him back to the wheel house and the old man.
Inskaap heard the familiar pinging of a scanner. Somewhere out there another ship was circling in. The old captain looked up from his chart table and cracked a wizened smile. “So, Yaguud, I hope you had a pleasant trip.”
“More than I could have asked for, sir. I really did not expect such marvelous cuisine,” he said mockingly.
The captain ignored his jibe and simply said, “You got what you paid for. No more, no less. When that courier boat comes alongside these men will take you down to the spillway and you can use the tube to move over. Should only be another few minutes that you have to suffer our company.”
He nodded and threw the dittybag onto the chart table. “For you, captain, and your men should you decide to share. As a bonus.”
The old man took a quick peek inside the bag and smiled. He immediately turned and stuffed the bag into a wall safe in the bulkhead behind him. “That is a very generous gesture,” he said as he spun the dial. “That bonus was not necessary to buy any more silence than you had already paid for.”
“Then use it to help the next group. Use it any way you see fit.”
The grizzled old salt looked him in the eye. “Your ship is waiting, Yaguud. Perhaps you should get below.”
Inskaap turned and left the bridge. Five minutes later he was through the connecting tube and onto the waiting ship. He was surprised when the first crewman to help him aboard was a human sailor. Dressed in a Colonial Navy uniform with a huge firearm on his belt. “Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Colonel Yaguud,” the man said in Elberese, “let’s get you settled in quickly. We’re folding out of here in two minutes.”
He was hustled up a short ramp and his bag was taken from him and stowed in a container, or closet he guessed at the proper term. Things were moving faster than he’d expected with these humans. That sly old Yaguud had set this up pretty well for a stupid unseasoned functionary. But, of course, he had been desperate to get himself and his family out of the Domain so his preparations were finely crafted.
“I could not get my wife and children out in time,” he lied as he sat down.
“The merchant captain told us, sir. Maybe they’ll be able to come on a later boat. I’m Lieutenant Commander Will Vaun, by the way, and if you need anything, let me know. Better get strapped in, we’ll be under acceleration as soon as we clear the docking tube.”
Inskaap looked around the modern cabin. He was the only passenger.
“Commander Vaun, need you topside, sir,” a voice said. The commander walked forward to a comm console and hit a stud. “On the way, Hardy,” he said. He looked back at Inskaap one more time and slapped a panel to the right of a hatchway. It eased open and the officer was gone.
Inskaap fingered the little transmitter in his pocket. As soon as he heard the throb of the boat’s engines kick in, he pulled it out. When the whine of the courier boat hit maximum volume he pressed the flashing button.
Bye, bye, old man, he thought. See you in hell.
* * *
It only took Admiral Resuur a matter of hours to trace Inskaap. The trail of murder and destruction he’d left on Canuure made his tracks pretty easy to follow. Once his ground-car was found parked near the spaceport’s civilian docks the rest was a routine matter.
He had the logs sent up to his waiting task force. In the last twelve hours only three ships had departed Canuure. One passenger liner headed for one of the outlying resort planets; one cargo ship under contract with the military to ferry materiel to the contruction factories on Rauud Mithie; and one merchant marine vessel heading for a mining operation near Nahboode. Since the second ship left the port under military guard and had picked up two warship escorts once it made orbit, Resuur ruled it out. As for the tourist boat, it had been sold out weeks in advance and the port master confirmed it had not taken on any last minute passengers. That left the merchant.
The ship was called the Hiigrees and its manifest had shown a cargo of drill heads, excavation equipment, portable ore processing units, and assorted high explosives. It registered a crew of fifty one, had no prior violations and sailed under the Nahboode flag. The thing that caught Admiral Resuur’s eye was the lengthy transit time. It filed a flight plan that would exceed normal limits by some fifteen percent. It was making a stop somewhere. That had to be the ship.
To be on the safe side, Resuur dispatched two boats to hail the passenger liner, another two to intercept the cargo vessel. That left him and five other ships to chase down the merchant. Orders were transmitted, acknowledged, and the task force disbursed.
Resuur was in one of the new warships and he put her through her paces. Following the azimuth from Canuure to Nahboode he traced the jump signatures of the Hiigrees and bored through the same holes. His attendant destroyers had a hard time keeping up with his new Dyson-equipped ship so he periodically had to unfold, as the humans called it, and wait for them. Even with his many spurts and stops, he was sure it would be just a matter of time before he had the merchantman in his sights. He had enough men in his little flotilla to make boarding and inspecting the merchant vessel practical and easy. And if the boat resisted in any fashion, he had the authority to destroy it.
His only regret was that his new ship had none of the exotic new weaponry that had been the talk of the Malguurian Navy. Those things would come in time, he figured, all he had to do is wait. And stay alive until it happened.
Sixteen hours into his chase his helmsman barked over the noise on his busy bridge. “My Admiral, sir! Ship sitting dead in the lan
e at four two weetii, our two eight four, seven down.”
“On the viewer, Naarid Puudide. Stop all engines, coast us in for a better look. Naarid Gleed, put the profile of the merchantman on the screen. Let’s see if we have found our prey.”
Gleed punched a few buttons and the graphic of the Hiigrees flashed on the big blister. It was a match.
“Get those destroyers up to our fantail, and have them armed and ready, Naarid Yeenii, do it now!” he ordered to his quartermaster. The bridge of Resuur’s ship, the Eliminator, was a buzz of activity. Reports of ship movements and related maneuvering chatter filled the compartment with the clacking language of the Malguur. This was his moment, Resuur thought, this was his hour to make the Deliverer proud. He had his weapons officer ready all magazines and when all was prepared to his satisfaction, he decided to hail the merchantman.
“This is Admiral Janth Resuur of the Domain Navy. Prepare to be boarded. Do not power up your drive engines. Merchant ship Hiigrees your cargo is in violation of Rule Four Seven Seven. Heel to and prepare to be boarded.”
“Sir, a small ship is just making speed off her aft quarter, heading for a jump,” the helmsman Puudide said. “Not responding to my hails, sir. IFF says it’s not one of ours.”
“Let it go. We could not catch it in time. Track her until she jumps. Right now I want you to concentrate on that cargo ship. That is our prime target.”
“Yes, my torgud.”
“Destroyers in place, sir.”
“Take us in,” Resuur said triumphantly.
The six ships moved in unison, the admiral’s flagship at the point, the five destroyers flanked out on either side and slightly below his plane of transit. When his flotilla was within six weetii, or roughly one thousand meters, the Hiigrees exploded.
“Evasive action, eva —”
Janth Resuur never finished his warning. With the merchantman disintegrating at over 18,000 meters per second, the first pieces of shrapnel hit the Eliminator with enough force to vaporize the entire front of the ship and once that was gone and the contents of the flagship started to spill into the void, the exploding merchant vessel really blew up. Once the initial fire reached the cargo hold with its drilling equipment, earth moving machines and cache of high explosives, the remainder of the ship was ignited. The resulting detonation hurled the merchantman into the retreating destroyers and it was only by some miracle from the Deliverer himself that one of the escort boats survived the hellish nightmare.
Five ships destroyed with the loss of two thousand men.
Vice Admiral Janth Resuur’s first encounter of the war ended in abject failure.
None of his ships had fired even a single volley.
* * *
Yorn jumped back in the nick of time. He heard the recycling pumps start up and realized the main hangar door was opening! The small craft would be exposed to vacuum. He pushed the release control and the door to the flitter slowly cranked back down. Several loose pieces of trash and debris managed to whisk out beneath the door before it closed.
He immediately ran forward and studied the controls in the ship’s forward compartment. He knew enough of the Varson tongue to make out some of the controls and he was out of options. Yorn pushed what he figured was the master control switch and suddenly the interior lights and screens came to life. He hit several studs at random until he found the one that operated the shutters. Slowly the blast shields were raised and he had a clear view out of the small windscreen.
Falling back on his knowledge of boats in general, he decided to sit in the left seat and see if he could get the engine started. As it was now, the craft was operating on internal batteries and he would need more than that to get out of this hangar bay. From the cycled lock in front of him several gangly men in evo suits were stumbling into the hangar bay. When they saw the illuminated cabin of the ship they made for it at a fast trot. Two of the four men unholstered weapons.
The alien chattering from the comm stack caught him off guard. Someone was hailing the ship and barking orders. Yorn guessed that the four men approaching him were the ship’s flight crew, getting ready to take him to wherever his final resting place was to have been.
A blinking board of lights started up and he had no idea what sequence of studs to push to get this ship moving.
So he hit them at random, one at a time, and on his fifth try, he felt the engine fire up. The flyer shuddered and lifted, drifting slowly to the right. He grabbed the yoke and pushed it hard over. The ship responded by turning to starboard and now the nose was pointed toward the hangar bay opening into free space. He felt the hits as the Varson flight crew fired at his tail. Yorn grabbed the throttle handles and eased the levers toward the floor as he gently pulled back on the yoke. The control handles were designed for creatures with longer fingers than his but he managed to stretch his hand on the throttle levers with adequate pressure. The ship bucked beneath him and he felt more impacts on his hull.
Here goes nothing, he thought as he pushed the throttle levers down to the floor boards and locked them in place by releasing his hand on the spring-loaded levers. The flyer shot through the hangar but was headed directly at the port bulkhead and another ship that was parked there. Yorn fought the yoke with both hands and cleared the bulkhead just barely, but not quite enough.
The screaming screech of metal on metal filled the control cabin and a shower of sparks burned across his vision in the split-second that his head was upright. The glancing blow off the interior of the hanger bay pushed the little ship into a deadly spiraling loop that wrenched the yoke from Yorn’s left hand.
He fought against the tremendous g-forces that wanted to push him down and away from the control yoke. He could see the dark sky, the warship, a distant star all spinning around through the forward windscreen. Using all of his strength he reached out and grabbed the control yoke with his right hand and once he got a firm grip on it, he managed to pull himself back into the control chair. He used his other hand to reach around and secure the harness belts across his shoulder and lap. Then, using both hands, he pushed the nose of the ship down and turned the yoke as far as it would go in the opposite direction of his spin.
Something exploded directly in front of him, a bright flashpoint of light and he turned the steading ship away from the blast. He heard the pebbles on a hotplate sound of the shrapnel hitting his starboard flank. The ship was shooting grenades at him!
Yorn looked desperately for the jump function. He knew he had enough speed accumulated already; not enough for a Dyson fold but surely enough for the outdated Varson jump technology. His eyes swept the control screens and watched helplessly as the alien symbols and numbers marched across the screens. He had no idea what these readouts were telling him.
Another blast from a grenade rocked his boat and he pulled the yoke straight back. If his attacker was a standard Varson warship it would have gunports on both flanks and its tail with torpedo tubes buried in its nose. If it was typical, he hoped, there would be no way to shoot at him if he was topside, above the cone of the flank gun positions.
Yorn held the yoke back for twenty or thirty seconds and then leveled out. He saw bright flashes in the distance and he nosed the ship a little more to port and saw that he was accelerating away from the Varson cruiser’s topside and putting distance between them. One large orange panel light started blinking frantically and as the intervals shortened and compressed, it finally glowed solid orange.
The jump signal?
Without hesitation Yorn slapped at the panel.
The background stars turned into streaks of multicolored lights and winked out.
He was away.
Where he was headed, he hadn’t a clue.
PART FIVE: Trouble In The Fringes
Chapter 30
Captain Wane Garlan looked over his itinerary. This had been just about the dullest cruise he had ever undertaken. Ferrying a bunch of pot-bellied politicians and businessmen around the Fringes. What a waste of fuel, he
thought. But he followed his orders to the letter and now after stops on Bayliss, Wilkes and Canno, he was ready to rendezvous with the first line of picket ships surrounding the Varson Empire. Then one more trip through the folds and he would be totally in Varson space and days from potential help if this trade delegation thing proved unsuccessful.
Why these old fat Elberites wanted to do business with a bunch of warlike cretins was not spelled out in his orders and even if the reasoning was there in black and white he doubted he would agree with it. He had been a lieutenant commander in the Second when the skirmish with the Varson Empire started almost a dozen years ago. He remembered sitting on the bridge of the Pompano Beach and watching Varson ships, out of fuel and out of ballistic weapons, ram through the gathering ships of the Second Fleet. Most of them just succeeded in pushing the Higgs Fields hard against the hulls of the human ships and bouncing away but the ones that hit them at speed managed to do a lot of damage.
But that was then, this is now, and the atmosphere was one of cautious optimism. All of his transmissions with the Varson guide boats had been friendly and they were well versed in Elberese politeness. There had been no flare-ups along the border with the Varson Empire and aside from a few isolated skirmishes between the Second Fleet and Varson ships willing to test the blockade, nothing much was happening out here other than this trade delegation mission. It would be another two hours before his escorts unfolded behind him, leaving a small Varson escort frigate his only companion on this leg of the cruise.
“Captain Garlan, we’re being hailed, sir,” his communications officer said.
“Let’s hear it, Mister Nagal.”
A thin respectful voice came through the hissing background. “. . . Colonial Navy. We are tracking your movements through restricted space. This is the CNS Nautilus River and you are ordered to slow your progress through our inspection point by authority of the Commander in Charge of the Colonial Navy. We are. . .”
The Belt Loop (Book Two) - Revenge of the Varson Page 18
