"You're forgetting your place, Georg!" the Duke raised his voice again, but after my reminder that I would hang up, he started speaking normally. "Peres and Sivir will arrive to their holdings with sufficient escort and all necessary documents, so anyone who tries to get in their way will be declared a traitor!"
"Duke, there's a simple thing you're not seeing: while your messengers are on their way, I could give these systems to any Kingdom, corporation or organization – it could even be a fictitious one or one that I just created myself. And the legal, responsible representative of that faction would confirm that those systems really are their property. So if you try to give my legally acquired systems to your relatives, the Orange House will be deprived of them entirely, simple as that."
The Duke practically roared back, his eyes burning with rage.
"You wouldn't do that! Doing something like that would be an extremely unamicable step in your relationship with the Orange House and the Empire as a whole! You'd be declared a criminal!"
"Why? Overdramatizing the situation and intimidating me is not advisable." I began smiling ostentatiously in reply. "The simplest option: I could give the Sigur and Tivalle systems to my legal wife, Princess Marta royl Valesy ton Mesfelle-Kyle. And why not? They would make a great gift and a sign of reconciliation at the same time. The two disputed systems would be given to the Kingdom of Fastel and would pay taxes to them, but I would remain at the helm nevertheless. And note, Duke, that this would all be done in full accordance with Imperial law. No one would be able to accuse me of even the tiniest infraction."
"We'll see about that," the Duke grumbled discontentedly in reply. "Georg, it seems you haven't understood that you're trying to cut yourself off too big a piece, and what's more you have the gall to be rude to an elder. What the hell? It's time to put you in your place. Know that until Peres and Sivir get the star systems promised to them, you will not be receiving a penny of financing from the Orange House. And I'll even tell you more – from this minute, not one dock in Sector Eight will sell you a single ship, and not one distributor will ship you a single ounce of metal for building new starships. Let's see how long you hold out and how quickly you run out of funds for fleet upkeep. I'm sure that in a few months you'll be apologizing to me and begging me to take these disputed systems from you!"
The Orange House head signed off. I let loose a string of curse words to the empty room. That old dude is trying to tie my hands with his embargo! And what? He provoked me. I was not prepared to let such impudence go so easily. So I pressed call:
"Bionica, transmit an order to all our financiers: all taxes and payouts to the Orange House treasury are to be temporarily halted. The funds are to accrue for now in a separate account until my personal word has been given."
How much was I supposed to pay in taxes to the Orange House just for what I'd found yesterday? I think it was one hundred fifty million. If the old man doesn't change his mind, this money will go to my fleet upkeep.
* * *
Over lunch, my daughter was complaining that she was bored – and that was probably true. The hurricane was still raging outside as before, though it had grown less strong, and Lika was still forbidden to go outside. She had no toys or playmates in the palace to speak of. I promised her that I'd come up with a way to have some fun. Lika had barely left for her room to watch some children's program when I called my secretary and another couple maintenance personnel from the castle staff. Pointing at random at one of the young men, I handed him a gold crown that I had found in one of the surviving safes:
"I want this gold band engraved with ruby letters. Make them pretty and intricate. They should say: 'True Pirate Princess.' Can you get it done in a couple of hours?"
The red-haired boy scratched his head thoughtfully and nodded yes.
"Great! Now you," I said to the other worker. "Scare up a miniature radio beacon and a direction finder. Ask the guards. They've definitely got a couple lying around. Set it up so the direction finder will pick up the beacon's frequency easily."
When the workers had left, I turned to the android. The blond girl was acting totally natural today. She gave no hint, in expression or gesture, to remind me of yesterday's craziness in the underwater cave. Yesterday, she was simply wonderful but, since this morning, with a sober mind, I was horrified. How much had I risked? If someone figures out that the Crown Prince has his fun with a robot, that'll be the end of my standing. No, they probably wouldn't revoke my titles, but the scandal that would result would still be horrifying. It would threaten a whole cascade of unpleasantries up to the point of it being forbidden for me to appear in polite society and me being officially reprimanded by the Emperor.
"Bionica, I hope you have enough discretion to not remind me further about what happened between us. And you must never tell anyone else about it under any circumstances. That is an order."
"Do not worry, my Prince. I'll be silent as the grave," the android girl whispered barely audibly, with a light bow.
I remained briefly silent, then changed the topic:
"The forecast says that the storm will be over in three hours. By that time, you should hide the crown given to you by the maintenance workers somewhere in the rocks. Place the little beacon next to the crown. As soon as the weather calms down, you'll call Lika to go swimming. I don't know how, but convince her to take a dive in the lagoon with the breathing mask. Lead her to the cave with the chest and pretend that you've just found it. Take out what’s left of the drinks and hide the direction finder in the trunk. And put a sheet of parchment in there. Style it up to make it look old, and write on it that the most valuable treasure on the island can only be found by someone who is worthy and quick-witted. Well, and let Lika fiddle with the chest herself. She should open the lock. For a child, that's the most fun part. Let her take whatever valuables catch her eye. Don't worry, I'll compensate you for everything bought on your money. Well, and after make sure that Lika is able to find the crown using the direction finder, no matter what happens. Do you understand?"
Bionica began to smile and answered that she would do everything as I asked. I sent half a million credits to the android's account and went to my shuttle with a relieved heart. The pilot told me that the weather had cleared up enough to allow him to start. On the way, I was smiling, imagining the spark in my daughter’s eye when looking for real treasure. I hope that my daughter will have something to tell her little friends about after the break. And then, this evening, Lika definitely won't be bored anymore.
The shuttle started off into the gloomy sky, packed with dark, thick clouds. But the experienced pilot had not been mistaken; I really didn't feel the wind anymore. We got out into orbit with no problems and were quickly approaching a belt of metal debris. The place looked surreal – there were twisted, melted structures, rotating pieces of ceramic metal, and a several-mile-long mess of cables.
"There's the temporary construction base," commented Admiral Kiro Sabuto, pointing at a bright spot in space far away from the drifting trash. "They've already begun cleaning up this chaos, and today a new platform for attaching hangars and construction girders was delivered. But the most interesting thing still isn't there. The battleship that was under construction has been cleaned of twisted hangar debris and pieces of superstructure that got blown apart in the explosion. The repair workers are living inside the battleship in sealed units. Two ship airlocks are in working order and, as it were, we are on our way to dock at one of them.”
The shuttle turned sharply to the right and, without entering the cloud of debris, set off into the blackness of space. The huge ship appeared out of nowhere. I only spotted the mile-and-a-half-long goliath when it was less than a hundred yards out. I don't know how it was explained. Maybe the material the ship was made out of was bad at reflecting light, or maybe we approached from the dark side, but the sudden realization that you've just noticed such a huge titan so close to you has quite a bad effect on the nerves. Our shuttle seemed like a pitiful fly
on an elephant’s back.
Finally, our little ship was caught by the magnetic arms and pulled inside the larger starship. I was greeted by the leader of the repair brigade, Kul ton Fes, a man of practically square proportions with impossibly huge hands and the neck of a bull. Insofar as I understood, such a build was evidence that he was born on a planet with high gravity, and his swarthy skin spoke to the bright sun of his home.
"My Prince, welcome to our unfinished ship. I recommend that you attach magnetic pads to your shoes right away. Only one of our artificial gravity installations is working, and it is on reduced power – we're saving electricity."
I obeyed the man's advice and stuck the magnetic attachments on my shoes. We went down a long hallway and ended up in a round room with very bright lighting.
"This is something like our central office," Kul ton Fes explained with a snicker. "In reality, this is the distribution hub next to the future central elevators. From here you can reach many different sections of this giant."
The craftsman's assistant turned on a big screen on the wall and pointed to a map of the ship. Yes, the complexity of the forthcoming work made an impression. Most of the lines on the map were drawn in red, which meant these modules, sections, walls and partitions had not been built yet. Kul ton Fes turned on a laser pointer and pointed at a row of turrets on the ship's chassis:
"I'll begin with what's important. The hardest and most expensive is going to be scaring up high-power laser turrets. A battleship like this one needs gigawatt pulse lasers, a whole eight of them. We cannot get our hands on such equipment ourselves. Such things need special factories and a long calibration period, which is why they are made to order in the Imperial Core. One turret costs around seven million credits. Insofar as I understand, it was this lack of cannons that held the Brotherhood of the Stars back from finishing this ship. To purchase high-power laser installations, you need special permission from Imperial monitoring services, and getting that is no easy feat. Well, and obviously they had a deficit of materials. Here on Unatari, there is a heat-resistant tantalum alloy production facility, but its output is microscopic."
"You need tantalum alloy to complete the construction?" I clarified.
"Yes, my Prince. To build the chassis of any military starship, special kinds of alloys are needed, with certain characteristics. Usually, tantalum-based alloys are used. In addition, a great deal of these alloys are needed for building a frame, no less than three hundred thousand tons. If we can only count on the local production from Unatari, then we'll need seven hundred years before we have enough material. But if you can't get readymade alloys, then we could also work with tantalum ore concentrate. Then we could at least get started on making the armored plates on Unatari."
I turned and looked around for Admiral Kiro Sabuto. He was listening closely to the conversation and understood immediately:
"Yes, my Prince, I remember our conversation about the huge mountains of tantalum ore on the planet of the chameleons well. However, I must remind you that trading with the chameleon race is forbidden by decision of an Orange House court."
"Yes, I remember. Let's leave the issue of the battleship for now. How is the reconstruction of the docks coming along?"
Kul ton Fes shrugged his shoulders:
"It could be finished quickly enough. We've already ordered the equipment. As soon as it comes in from Tesse, we'll just need a couple days to put it together. But the problem is in cleaning up all this chaos. How can we talk about normal work when freight ships have to fly through a cloud of such abrasive fragments just to get here? And cleaning up all that dangerous garbage will take at least four weeks."
"I'm giving you a week. If needed, bring on more people and equipment from the planet, but it should all be working in seven days. My fleet, come what trouble may, has nowhere to go for repair. I can't keep sending them back to Tesse and asking my brother to fix them."
By the way, I was barely able to mention Tesse and my brother when... The communications officer told me that I was getting an incoming call from Crown Prince Roben royl Inoky. Well, I'll be! Has my brother come out of his multi-day drinking binge? I tried to get in touch with him a few times about various issues, but the Crown Prince's service answered that Roben wasn't available.
"What's up, little brother? I watched your parade, to be honest, on TV. You look good, but you've lost a very noticeable amount of weight. And Lika looked very classy. So grown up, and proud – she's really taken after our mother. But that's enough waxing lyrical. I, in fact, was looking for you for another reason. A whole Orange House fleet came unexpectedly to Tesse, two hundred ships. It's being led by that ghoul, Crown Prince Peres royl Paolo, who I've wanted to strangle since I was a child. He had the fortune to be born three months before I was. Just three puny little months is all it took for the line of succession to be not in our favor, that is, mine, yours and Violetta's. And so, that ghoul is interested in the Hnelle warp beacon. He wants to jump there with his whole fleet. I explained to him clearly that the beacon is turned off due to risk, but that caustic infection discovered some of your ships on Tesse and has expressed a morbid curiosity in them."
"Have they been there long?" I clarified.
"Ah no, ten minutes, or maybe fifteen."
"Have they started recharging their energy drives yet?"
"Not yet. Little brother, do you want me to refuse them service? Let them sit there for five or six hours charging their power from their own ship's reactors?”
"No need. Just hold them there for ten minutes. That will be plenty of time for my ships."
"Of course I'll do it, it's not an issue. I'm happy to help you get the better of that ghoul."
"Thanks, Roben. And good health to your boy."
* * *
The first thing I saw after returning home was a whole mountain of jewelry on the floor of the entryway. The pirate chest was right there, though truthfully it looked pretty roughed up, as if someone had broken it with a sledgehammer. The happy Likanna, with the crown on her head and wearing a regal, red gown that was too long for a child, was jumping around the treasure and laughing in joy.
"Dad! You won't believe what you missed! You won't believe it! Me and Bionica got our hands on some treasure for you!"
"Why for me? You found it, it's yours," I chuckled, but the child wouldn’t give up.
"No, that's not right. You said yourself yesterday on the stage that hunters will get twenty percent of the treasure. So I picked out what I liked – this crown here, and another pretty, ancient signet ring, but the rest you have to give to your planet. And all Bionica took was a thin gold chain. It was just lying there on the sand next to the chest."
A chain? I instinctively felt my wrist. It was true. The gold chain with a pendant depicting a scene from the Kama Sutra was not there. It must have slipped off yesterday. The clasp on that thing was pretty flimsy. I had already unlatched it inadvertently several times. I'll have to have a talk with Bionica about that before anyone else notices.
After dinner with Lika in an excellent family atmosphere, I tended to my affairs. I had to sign and agree to a bunch of documents, confirm appointments to Unatari minister positions, sign off on the budgets of every city and the planet as a whole, and look over a plethora of information. Ugh, why did I get into politics? I am a fleet commander after all, not a ruler. How I understood Roben at that moment. I also needed assistants I could trust and who could take all this bureaucratic mess off my hands. Unfortunately, Bionica was not suited for that role. Conservative society would never accept a robot in such a high position.
The account balance change alert beeped. I opened the finance sheet. A deposit of three hundred and five million credits, the payout from my share of the confiscated pirate accounts, had come in! Awesome! Four hundred twenty million in my account. When would there be a better time to buy the expensive battleship cannons? And that was what I set about doing, as the risk absolutely existed that Duke Paolo might expand the embargo w
ith time to include weaponry for my starships.
Eight gigawatt pulse lasers with delivery to Tesse. So, I had to additionally confirm my identity to get special permission for this purchase. The legality of the transaction was confirmed, and I transferred fifty-six and a half million credits. The order is supposed to arrive within five days. Great!
Global standing decrease. Current value -17
What was that? Why did that happen? What am I doing wrong? It couldn't be that a Crown Prince buying weaponry for his personal fleet could bother someone, right? Or were my purchasing cannons and my standing decrease two absolutely unconnected events that just happened to coincide? I hope that's it.
I looked at the clock. It was eleven at night. Weird that Duke Paolo royl Anjer wasn't trying to call me anymore. His son that he sent to be enthroned was probably starting to figure out that the Hnelle warp beacon wouldn't be turning on for him no matter how long he might wait around or curse. He probably had already complained to his influential daddy about my foul play. And it wasn't in the Duke's character to just let it go and forgive such an offense.
When a call did come in from the communications officer I reacted practically with relief – that old pecker finally decided to reach out. However, I was wrong. It wasn't the head of the Orange House at all. Who wanted to talk to me was an anonymous caller from the Obella system. Where is that? And why such mysteriousness? Before giving my permission to put them through, I took a look at the interactive guide.
Obella is a small inhabited planetoid that orbits a gas giant. The star system bearing its name is located in Sector Three.
Sector Three? The Green House??? I could not have been expecting to hear from anyone less. What could they have wanted from me? I prepared myself for a quarrel. On the screen appeared Katerina ton Mesfelle, my second cousin, who worked for the Green House.
Sector Eight (Perimeter Defense: Book #1) Page 26
