Planet Patrol: The Interplanetary Age (Star Service Book 1)

by Charles Lee Jackson II

  HE NEEDN'T HAVE worried. Thetis arced right down the Hermetic umbra, swooping into position at midnight and turning toward the northwest. Shortly, the great boxy shape of Cinnabar hove into sight, looking like a nest of office buildings stuck into the top of some gigantic shopping mall. Tiny lights showed at the few windows and at the corners of the higher roofs, as well as at the main airlock.

  As the ship got closer, Sandy could see that at the rear of the city was a broad platform, with landing lights. At either side, fully a dozen space ships were parked. Four were Service pinnaces, pointy tubelike ships used for short planetary hops, and one a Sangan star cruiser. But the last one caught Wild Bill's attention.

  "Jack, look at that."

  Jack Flynn had seen it, too. A private yacht, indicating that some double-V IP was in town. "Ask the deputy, just in case."

  Webbe planned to. A well-to-do civilian in this harsh land meant something was up.

  The great arrowhead that was HMSS Thetis drifted in behind Cinnabar and set down on its broad back porch, carefully landing in an especially marked berth near the city wall.

  Once the ship was quiet, the crew set to converting their uniforms to safety wear, which consisted mostly of closing seals at the tops of their boots and donning gloves. Sandy already had her hand-wear, one glove and one gauntlet, the latter incorporating a high-power energy weapon.

  This compact BLASER was one of the few ray-guns legal to use in space. The side-arms carried by sky marshals and other pistol-packing spacemen discharged rubber slugs, for the sake of the structural integrity of pressurized environments.

  The crew, excepting "Prof" Morfett, collected the Benedictus-glass helmets that completed their safety gear and stepped into the boat's airlock. Presently they stepped out onto the landing stage and hopped down to Cinnabar's landing platform, hiking over to the lighted tall and broad arch that marked the main airlock into the city. It consisted of one large hatch, twenty-five feet wide by fifteen high, in which was set a small people door, three by seven.

  The small portal was operated manually, and two of the men cracked the hatch.

  AS THEY EMERGED into the main mall of Cinnabar, it was obvious to all but Sandy that something was wrong. The courtyard was deserted, and only one lamp in six was lighted.

  "Must be late," she suggested.

  Jack shook his head. "It's fifteen-hundred hours – three o'clock in the afternoon, Hollywood time."

  "Something's wrong," Sandy said. The others just looked at her, as if to say, duh.

  "The City Hall is just up the way," Wild Bill said. "C'mon." Sandy, Jack, and Pat followed close on his heels, while the others dispersed to follow their own interests. After all, this was Liberty time for them. They had no duties while in port.

  Inside government house, Bill and the others found things seemingly a bit more normal. The Mayor and Deputy Marshal Scanlon received them anxiously.

  "Marshal Webbe," the Mayor said. "Am I glad to see you! And this is Her Grace, I hope."

  Sandy nodded and introductions were performed. "Why's the city on emergency lighting? And whose yacht is that outside?"

  "The two are connected," Scanlon spoke up. "The yacht belongs to Esther Cabanne—"

  "Cabanne? Cabanne Mining and Manufacturing?" Jack asked.

  "The same. Mis'ess Cabanne runs her late husband's interests all over the system, and doesn't do it as well as he did."

  Wild Bill nodded. "I know. We've had some trouble with her asteroid mine concerns."

  "Well, she got a six-month option to explore for mining in Calisto Montes and sent down an engineer and a dozen of the roughest guys I ever saw.

  "Apparently she got them here by offering fantastic terms. The six months expires next month, and they haven't found anything. So suddenly she's reneged on the contract – at least according to the workers.

  "They started causing trouble, and I had to arrest a few of 'em. The Cabanne flew down to testify in the case against them. But about an hour ago, after a shouting match between her and the other workers, we got some real trouble."

  "This is where the lights come in?"

  "Right. The sappers’ foreman warned us that if we didn't let his men go, he'd force us to listen to their complaints. The Mayor tried to explain that the Princess would listen to the whole story when she got here, but the foreman claimed we were just stalling and stormed out.

  "Next thing we know, there's some kind of explosion down below, and the whole place went dark, somebody'd discharged the main batteries."

  "I don't understand," Sandy put in.

  "We're down to the emergency back-up batteries, which means we've got enough power to reach the re-charger at the next collector, about three hours up the line, but not much beyond that. So the lights are low, everything's shut down."

  "So this is an annoyance, not a disaster," Sandy said.

  "Yeah, but there's not much room for maneuvering," the Mayor replied.

  "Then you'd better listen to us," said a new voice. Everyone turned to see three space-suited men in the doorway. They were rough-looking men, with hard jaws and no smiles.

  "Foreman Mitchell," Scanlon said, indicating the meanest looking guy. "Mitchell, this is Princess Allesandra. She'll listen to whatever you have to say."

  "She'd better. And in the next half-hour, too!" Mitchell said.

  "What's your rush?"

  "In forty-five minutes, the next station is gonna be blown t’ smithereens!"

  The Mayor and Scanlon reacted angrily. Wild Bill and Jack had to restrain them. The three sappers stood their ground.

  "Wait a minute, wait a minute," Webbe said. "What's the deal here?"

  The Mayor ignored him, staring at Mitchell. "No threats, buster! You blow up that station and you'll go to jail for life! You go back and disconnect your bomb, or else!"

  "Or else what?"

  "Or else I'll find a technicality to keep your friends from this session of court, and they'll sit right in the jug until the next circuit convenes!"

  Sandy took Webbe aside to ask, "What, as you so aptly put it, is the deal here?"

  Wild Bill explained, "Cinnabar only has enough power to get to that next re-charging station. If it gets blown up, the city'll never make it to the one after that!

  "There aren't enough ships to evacuate this city. If it stops moving, the whole place will freeze. Hundreds will die."

  Chapter Two

  City in Trouble

  ALLESANDRA PENDRAGON RETURNED her attention to the tableau that now faced her, having exhausted their respective arguments, the two sides simply glared at each other. Jack and Pat stood by, ready if somebody should make a false move. Sandy, however, realized that it was she who should make the next move.

  "Bailiff," she addressed the deputy, mustering up all of her formal dignity, "arrest these men. Bring them and the other prisoners to the courtroom. I shall hear this case immediately."

  At first the sappers were angered, but calmed down when they heard the part about hearing the case right away. Sandy strode, ramrod straight, into the hall beyond the booking room.

  Deputy Sky Marshal Scanlon brandished a pistol, ordering the sappers to, "Get along. You heard what Her Grace said."

  Though the two workers grumbled, they followed along when the foreman started after the Princess.

  Wild Bill crossed to where Jack Flynn and Pat Karrol were waiting with the Mayor.

  "She'll take care of them," Jack was saying.

  "I wish I could be so sure," the Mayor responded.

  "We don't hafta leave all of our asteroids in one belt, y'know," Wild Bill Webbe remarked.

  "What do you mean?"

  Bill touched the silver badge on his uniform. "I am the law, after all. I've been alerted to a crime in progress."

  Jack smiled, turning to Pat. "Go back to the boat, and relieve the Prof. Tell him to meet us at the main airlock in twenty minutes – and bring a space scooter."

  "Aye, aye." Karrol sketched as much of a salut
e as his status required, and took off.

  Bill said to the Mayor, "We'll take a run out there and see if we can de-fuse the explosives."

  "First," Jack said, "let's see a chart of the area... ."

  "ALL RISE," THE bailiff/deputy cried out. "Criminal Circuit Court of The Empire is now in session; Justice Her Grace Space Princess Allesandra presiding."

  Sandy, with a dark crimson robe covering her uniform, entered and stepped up to the bench. She moved stiffly, formally. This was her first session, and she was going to run it by the book. Once she was seated, she told the others they could sit.

  "Mister Scanlon, has the docket been rearranged according to my order?"

  "Yes, Your Grace."

  "Call the first case."

  "Your Grace, The Empire on behalf of the People of Cinnabar versus Mackay Tindall, George O'Grady, Theodore Milton, and Does one through nine. John Doe number one has been identified as Martin Shannon."

  "Gentlemen, approach the bench," she ordered. Turning to Scanlon, she added, "Bench warrants have been issued in this matter. Are the individuals present?"

  Scanlon scanned the room. One warrant had been served on Foreman Mitchell, a second on Mis'ess Cabanne. Both were present, the latter with her own attorney. Scanlon said so for the record.

  "Mister Prosecutor, read the charges."

  City Attorney Gil Porter stood at his table, nodding to Her Grace and then to his opponent, Public Defender Hannah Hardy. "Drunk and disorderly, vandalism, extortion, attempted murder," Porter said, speaking with as little emotion as he could manage. The announcement of the last two charges caused a commotion in the court, but Sandy quashed it with a crash of her gavel.

  "Gentlemen, you will have your opportunity to speak. Would you prefer that opportunity now, or in three months?"

  They settled down. Sandy asked, "Will Prosecution elaborate?"

  Porter adjusted his spectacles and read from a sheet of foolscap.

  "Defendants Tindall and O'Grady were arrested for starting a fight, in which some two thousand sovereigns’ worth of damage was done, in the Squirrel's Tail Public House on the twenty-second of November. Defendant Milton was arrested while smashing mining equipment belonging to Cabanne Mining and Manufacturing, December seventh. All three were bound over for trial and were shackled and released on their own recognizance."

  Sandy interrupted. "Is that usual procedure?"

  "Yes, Your Grace. We don't have much crime here, and the whole city can serve as a jail. For minor offenses, the accused are fitted with an electronic shackle and released. Where, we figure, are they going to go?"

  "But you said these men were charged with extortion and attempted murder."

  He rustled his papers. "…If I may continue?"

  She nodded.

  "This morning, at nine o'clock city time, a letter was delivered to the Mayor's office, threatening that if the Marshal's office did not arrest Mis'ess Esther Cabanne, recently arrived in the city, that the city batteries would be discharged.

  "I need hardly say that the batteries are the principal source of power for the city, and without them, the very lives of the citizens are in jeopardy.

  "When Mis'ess Cabanne was not arrested, through some agency not yet determined the batteries were indeed discharged, forcing the city to resort to emergency power sources.

  "Electronic-shackle signals indicated that the three recently released accused were in the battery compartment at that moment, and Deputy Scanlon responded to that location, finding the three men and Mister Shannon, who confessed to being involved in the incident at the Squirrel's Tail Public House, saying his conscience wouldn't let him remain silent. All four men claimed responsibility for the damage to the batteries, and disclaimed any involvement by any of their known associates."

  The Public Defender quickly exchanged sotto voce remarks with her clients, but declined to interrupt the Prosecutor.

  "The Accused volunteered the information that all of their activities were part of a single campaign, and requested that all of the charges be combined in the interest of justice."

  Allesandra's eyebrows went up at that, but all she said was, "Indeed."

  As Porter sat down, Sandy turned her attention to Miss Hardy, who stood.

  "Your Grace, my clients are the victims in this matter," she said, but she didn't sound very sincere, somehow. "These men are – or were – employed by Cabanne Mining and Manufacturing Corporation. They maintain that they were lured to Cinnabar under false pretenses, and that repeated attempts to force the lawful authorities to intervene on their behalf having failed, they were forced into breaches of the peace to bring the matter before the bar of justice."

  "Threatening to murder an entire city's worth of people?" Sandy asked.

  "Mister Tindall admits to threatening same, but asserts that they had no intention of actually carrying out the threat. The discharge of the batteries was accidental."

  Knowing that Foreman Mitchell was offering much the same threat at that very moment, Sandy was loath to buy this defense, but determined to hear this thing out. Having noticed the absence of Jack Flynn and Bill Webbe, she expected she knew where they were.

  BUT SHE WAS wrong. She thought they were down in the engineering areas of the city, looking for clews. But, after having gotten the lay of the land, Bill and Jack had headed for the airlock. The layout of the back end of Cinnabar is very much like a twenty-first century shopping mall, with a number of small stores waiting like spiders to catch travelers coming from and going to the Main Airlock. These shops face on a two-story-high plaza with a central fountain and lots of potted plants – wherever in space man has gone, his plants, partners in the oxygen cycle, have gone with him.

  Now, the plaza was deserted, dark in the low-key lighting. The two Star Servicemen trotted toward the double-doors. Bill handed Jack his helmet and began to turn the wheel that operated the man-door.

  "Just turn it back," somebody said. The J-men turned to see five men who had been hiding in the shadows and who were now closing in on them.

  Bill and Jack took up defensive positions, not quite back to back, blockading the door. Jack set down the two helmets behind them, and went into a martial-arts stance.

  One of the five men, dressed in the sapper coveralls of the Cabanne Corporation, said, "Ooo! Scary. It's that Bruce guy from th’ vids!"

  The other four feigned fear. The spokesman continued, "Why don't you boys run back over to City Hall, and we'll just forget about this, huh?"

  Wild Bill flashed his buzzer and said, "Why don't you boys just run over to City Hall, and turn yourselves in, and I'll reduce the charges to ‘Creating a Public Nuisance’."

  The biggest of the five produced a hunk of pipe, brandishing it at Webbe and frowning. Bill held up two fingers on his left hand and three on his right. Jack shook his head, holding up three fingers on his left hand and two on the right. As the sappers closed in, Bill nodded and abruptly lashed out.

  He went straight up, kicking a sapper in the teeth, and struck a second a glancing blow with a fist. Jack charged at the one with the pipe, ducking sidewise just as the man struck.

  Caught off balance as the pipe hit the deck, the big man offered a broad target for a double hammer from Flynn, who followed with a knee to the side of the big guy's neck.

  The sapper spokesman dived at Wild Bill, and the two tumbled back against the fountain, struggling.

  The last man had found a two-by-four; holding it like a lance, charged at Jack. Flynn sidestepped, and the man swung at him, then charged again. Again Jack stepped aside, but this time he lunged back in, karate-chopping the "lance" in two and tripping the rushing enemy.

  Bill's first two victims rose and caught him from behind, each grabbing an arm. Letting them get a good grip, Webbe lifted his feet from the floor, pulling both men down. Snapping down with his biceps, Bill cracked their heads together.

  Doing a forward flip back to his feet, Bill saw that all five sappers were down, two out cold, the o
thers groggy. Jack Flynn joined him and grabbed up their helmets. Bill spun the wheel, opening the hatch, and brought the hunk of pipe along.

  They went through the airlock and, emerging onto the back deck, found T. Garrison Morfett, known to them as the "Prof", waiting with a two-man scooter.

  "Wait for us here," Jack ordered, speaking over the radio. "Wild Bill, let's go."

  "Just a second," came the response. Jack turned back to see the Sky Marshal, wedging the outer man-door open with the length of pipe. "We don't want them following us."

  SAPPER TINDALL HAD just taken the witness box, and been sworn in.

  "Now," said Miss Hardy, "would you tell the court the antecedents to these incidents?"

  Tindall stared at her blankly.

  "Why did you start causing trouble?"

  "Oh. Me an’ my mates wuz 'ired by Mis'ess Cabanne ter come down 'ere an’ do some prospectin'. We'uz all asteroid miners, an’ none uv us wannit ter leave all that ter come down 'ere ter this pest'ole. But she promised us each a extra ten grand beyond our contract wages for the job—"

  "Objection," Prosecution spoke up. "Unsubstantiated."

  "Overruled," Sandy said. "We're getting his story. Whether or not any bonus was offered doesn't affect what he did."

  "But... ." Porter began again. A hard stare from Sandy stopped him.

  Tindall resumed. "We been lookin’ fer almos’ six months, and never found nuffin’ on 'er list. Now she says she never promised us a thing."

  Hardy asked, "Hadn't you gotten it in writing?"

  "We thought so. She had added a paragraph ter th’ contract, but now th' addition's not there."

  "Your Grace," Hardy said, handing the bailiff several sheets of heavy paper. "Submitted as Defense One through Six, defendants’ copies of the contract."

  Mitchell stood up from his bench seat and pointed to the clock, saying, "We'd better get on with this. Time's a'wastin'!"