The Doublecross Program: Book Three of the Star Risk Series

by Chris Bunch

  • • •

  “I have a somewhat jubilant message here,” King said. “Two of the invasion points have just linked up.”

  “Progress,” Riss said. “I wonder what the casualty count is.”

  “Who cares,” Goodnight said. “As long as it isn’t one of us.”

  Friedrich stood, stretched.

  “I suppose we might as well involve ourselves in the vulgar fray,” he said.

  “Might as well,” Goodnight agreed. “We do need to look heroic, so there won’t be any argument over the victory bonus.”

  FIFTY-TWO

  Star Risk was loading its gear for what it hoped was the final offensive.

  Jasmine King, always being efficient, had her ditty bag already aboard von Baldur’s Pride of Khelat.

  She was ready to roll … but two things nagged at her. First was what Riss had said Prince Wahfer had messaged; and the second was the still unexplained word that Anya Davenport, their lobbyist, question mark former, was headed toward the Khelat System for some unknown reason.

  Jasmine had figured out, long ago, that unanswered questions tended to turn around and bite freelancers in the butt. So she accessed a series of computer commands that Grok and she had prepared, set them in motion.

  If not canceled, the program would query her in a week, on a daily basis. If the reply was not what had been set, or if anyone else tried to access the program, it would take instant action.

  And both Jasmine and Grok doubted any third party could either stop it or figure out what its end use was.

  “Are you coming out to play?” Riss asked, sticking her head into Jasmine’s room.

  “On the way,” King said. “Just setting up some backdoor investment opportunities.”

  • • •

  “We are proposing to support your landing, at …” Friedrich flipped three coins, considered the result. “… at Point X-Ray Tardis.”

  “Excellent,” King Saleph enthused. “You have picked one of my weakest areas, that could desperately use your reinforcements.”

  “Attacking now,” von Baldur said, nodding at the watch officer.

  The Pride of Khelat cut its speed, used steering jets to drop out of its orbit around Irdis.

  The great cruiser was heavily escorted with Inch-cape’s destroyers and half of Spada’s p-boats.

  What the king didn’t know is von Baldur had specifically used a coded channel that Grok knew had been broken and was monitored by the Shaoki. Now their council would know Star Risk was in the picture, and commit its reserves accordingly.

  “I went and said it very clear/I went and muttered in their ear,” Friedrich muttered.

  “Pardon, sir?” the watch officer asked.

  “Nothing.”

  Von Baldur planned to make one sweep over the contested area, then divert to a second landing zone.

  He smiled, thinking of all the lovely confusion he would be wreaking below.

  • • •

  Reinforcements boiled out of the small transport. One of them was Grok. He’d transshipped from the Pride on the way down, wanting a more immediate experience than just strafing and missiling.

  Soldiers goggled at him, not knowing what to make.

  The gigantic alien had puzzled on how to keep from being a blue-on-blue casualty by his own men, decided to have a shirt made out of the Khelat flag. That should slow any attackers down so that he could either reason with them or kill them if they didn’t listen to logic.

  “Come on,” he bellowed. “For Khelat and freedom!”

  Officers looked at each other.

  The stranger seemed to know what he was doing — which he did. He’d been studying this particular city, and the problems the Khelat were having, since the landings began.

  “In the name of God and the Continental Congress,” he shouted, having no idea what that meant, but thinking it sounded martial as all hell.

  The Khelat came out of their positions and followed him.

  Grok spotted an entrenched crew-served weapon, dug a grenade off his harness, and lobbed it an impossible distance to land just under the horrified gunner’s nose.

  Not waiting for the explosion, Grok ran on, looking for another target.

  Within the hour, the Shaoki defense had broken and begun falling back.

  • • •

  “Spada One this is Star Risk Two,” Riss said, peering over the commander’s hatch at the twisted landscape in front of her. “I have a target.”

  “This is One. Go,” came back.

  “On the map … from Helet, down one zero left two five.”

  “I read back, from Helet down one zero left two five.”

  “Target, cluster of bunkers, with some light artillery hiding behind it.”

  “This is One. We’re coming in.”

  Riss involuntarily ducked as a flight of three Pyrrhus boats crashed down at her, pulled out bare meters from the ground, and rockets shot from their exterior tubes.

  The rockets slammed home, and the ground roiled and became even more surrealistic.

  “That’s on it, One,” Riss ‘cast. “Stand by for another mission.”

  • • •

  Goodnight’s mercenaries debouched from their lifters.

  The road was quiet, and only a few craters pockmarked the low hills around it.

  On the other side of the hills, about five kilometers, were the outskirts of the capital.

  The men came off their transport with their blasters at port arms, and without needing to shout a lot, formed up in platoon formations and trotted toward the city.

  Goodnight and his command group were just back of the point company. Chas, to his embarrassment, found himself breathing hard after only a couple of kilometers. I gotta keep remembering to work out, he thought.

  Then a scatter of mortar rounds crashed into the side of the road, and he forgot about being tired.

  • • •

  Grok allowed himself to pose nobly atop the hill, looked about for more Shaoki to kill.

  He didn’t see any.

  The Khelat were busy looting the bunkers or making sure all Shaoki casualties were corpses.

  That didn’t bother Grok — he always thought the human fetish for prisoners to be absurd.

  • • •

  Three Shaoki ships, large destroyers, came out of a canyon toward the Pride.

  “Target acquired,” a weapons officer reported.

  Friedrich nodded. “Stand by for launch, on my command — ”

  All three Shaoki exploded, one wheeling down into the ground.

  “What the — ” Friedrich managed.

  A speaker blared.

  “This is Inchcape One. Thanks for the setup.” Von Baldur allowed his pique to pass.

  “You know,” he said to the watch officer, “I think this war might be just about over.”

  • • •

  The streets of the capital were hung with white flags, made from everything from sheets and towels to shirts.

  Goodnight ran past the ruins of the council building he and Grok had blown up months earlier, that the Shaoki hadn’t had the time or capital to rebuild.

  “Well, sir?” Goodnight’s second in command asked.

  Goodnight thought.

  “Fine. Looting by squads. And no goddamned rape. I shoot rapists. No burning. No drunkards. They’ll lose their share … if some frigging Shaoki doesn’t backstab ‘em.”

  The officer saluted, and doubled away.

  • • •

  “All Star Risk elements,” von Baldur broadcast on a frequency only monitored by his fellows, in a rather singular code.

  “It is all over. I say again, the war is over except for the police call. Pull back and out. I say again, pull back and out and stand by for pickup.

  “There’s no point in being the last man killed.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  Prince Wahfer waited until his agents reported that the Star Risk principals had returned to Khelat II. He didn’t th
ink they had the slightest idea of his plans, but they were gifted with battle luck, and he needed no intrusions.

  Below his squadron, in low orbit over Irdis, was the king’s cruiser, waiting for the last holdouts below to give up so he could graciously accept the final surrender of the Shaoki worlds, the ultimate triumph.

  The king, according to Prince Barab, was busy planning just what he would wear to the ceremony, and figuring out what ultimate abasement he would inflict on the Shaoki, as well as who else, besides their council, he should have executed immediately.

  The king thought … the king planned … ran through Prince Wahfer’s mind in a merry chorus, as so many wistful dreams that would never happen.

  Wahfer grinned, turned to his watch officer, who had been one of the first to be involved in Wahfer’s plans.

  “Execute Plan Triumphant,” he ordered.

  The officer grinned.

  “With pleasure … Your Majesty.”

  “Careful,” Wahfer warned. “The gods tear the glass of exultation from the lips of those who drink too soon.”

  “Aye, sir.” The officer privately thought the prince was a pompous ass, but a winning one, so he kept the smile broad. The man seemed to get everything he wanted, down to the smallest item.

  The officer went to the confidential-materials safe at the rear of the bridge, touched sensors.

  It swung open, and the officer took out a fiche.

  But Wahfer needed no reminders on the first step.

  The crew of his cruiser was already at General Quarters.

  “Contact the flagship,” he ordered.

  In a few seconds, Prince Barab’s face was on-screen.

  “I have had an idea,” Wahfer said. “Rather than lessen the attention paid the king, I propose that my squadron should take care of that damned island that’s still holding out.”

  Barab could barely hide his smile.

  “That is most honorable, sir.”

  “And I have some other targets that should be disposed of at the same time,” Wahfer said. “May I approach your ship and transfer the list?”

  “Why … yes. Of course.”

  “I shall not need to come across,” Wahfer said. “And will send no more than one messenger.”

  Barab agreed, and Wahfer cut off.

  “Bring our ship within contact range of the flagship,” he ordered. “And take command. I shall be in the gunnery compartment.”

  The watch officer saluted, and Wahfer left the bridge, having trouble keeping his pace down.

  It has been so long, he thought.

  In the main weapons room he ordered a gunnery officer away from his post, and put on the man’s control helmet. He knew that trusted men were already securing all vital departments on his cruiser.

  Wahfer waited until the bridge reported that the king’s ship was less than a thousand kilometers distant.

  “Prepare to launch,” he ordered. “I’ll take the missile on individual control.”

  The gunnery commander looked puzzled, but he’d learned long ago to follow the prince’s orders exactly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Wahfer touched the synchronize sensor, and his senses swam for an instant.

  Then he was outside the cruiser, in space, and then in a sealed tube.

  Wahfer let his fingers, back in the gunnery room, ghostlike, touch the LAUNCH button on his board, and the tube came open and he was in space again.

  He “looked” around, saw a handful of destroyers clustered around a much bigger ship.

  Wahfer applied power, armed the missile, and at full drive shot toward the king’s ship, correcting his aim.

  If anyone gave an alarm, he didn’t notice, hypnotized by the onrushing target.

  A second or two before it struck, he cut contact with the missile and jerked off his helmet.

  He looked for a screen, found one, just as the missile struck and exploded, exactly as planned, on the king’s compartments just behind the bridge.

  Flame gouted, then the entire nose of the flagship detonated, spraying men and flame and oxygen into space.

  Then the ship blew up, and the screen blanked for an instant, sought another pickup, and when it cleared, the king’s ship was a dead hulk.

  Wahfer smiled.

  “I said I’d only send one messenger.”

  He got up from the gunnery station, ignoring the shocked — or smiling — faces in the compartment.

  “Now for my triumph,” he said. “And to secure my companion.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  “I am going to take a shower,” Redon Spada announced. “I still don’t feel clean.”

  “You, Sir Pilot, are light in the ass,” Riss announced. “If you were line slime like I am, you wouldn’t whine about being four days or so out of a fresher.”

  “But that, my lady love,” Spada said, “is the dif-ferments between us. I always had brains enough to keep away from the trenches.”

  “Hah,” M’chel said. “And have I ragged you sufficiently about your mistaken ideas of mortality?”

  “Only about lebenty-leben times.”

  They were curled, naked, on pillows on the floor of the living room.

  “Mmm,” Riss said, rolled over, and watched Spada go into the bathroom. She decided he had a nice ass, even if his legs were a little too short.

  Riss yawned, thought about turning the ‘caster on. But she wasn’t interested in martial music, some braying announcer talking about how noble the king was and how the evil Shaoki would now be paying for their sins and so forth.

  Why, she thought, was she messing with success? She and Redon had stayed incommunicado, except for periodic orders to the kitchens, for almost two days.

  She was starting to decide she was almost human again, and was looking forward to her island on Trimalchio IV, and maybe buying one of those rockets Spada had used to watch the waves from underneath.

  And she was wondering if she wanted to take Redon with her to her island … or let things just be solo. Maybe the latter would be a good idea, while she sorted out just what she felt, beyond good old-fashioned lust, for the pilot.

  Speaking of which, she sat up and thought about joining him for a shower, and whatever else arose.

  The door to the outside world banged open, and Prince Wahfer was standing there, wearing full dress uniform.

  Which left Riss at a bit of a loss.

  “M’chel,” he said, “I have come to ask you to join me.”

  “Get the hell out of my quarters,” Riss snarled.

  “I want you for my consort,” Wahfer said grandiosely, as if he weren’t listening. “My partner. To join me in ruling the Khelat Cluster!”

  M’chel was wondering what the hell he was talking about when the fresher door opened, and Redon Spada, wearing only a towel, came out, having heard the voices and looking perplexed.

  Wahfer’s eyes goggled.

  “You! Who are … what are you doing here?”

  “None of your goddamned business,” Spada growled.

  “I told you to get the hell out of my — ” Riss started. Wahfer’s hand was on the flap of his holster.

  Redon Spada saw the movement, dove for the pistol in his belt over a chair.

  Wahfer’s pistol was sliding out of the holster.

  Spada wouldn’t make it in time.

  Riss moved very quickly.

  Her pistol was beside her, on the nightstand, about which Spada had chided her for her paranoia.

  It came up smoothly, the safety slid off, and Riss fired three times.

  The blasts were very loud in the room.

  All three hit Wahfer in the chest, and he made a choked noise, his arms windmilled, and he dropped limply.

  Behind Wahfer, in the doorway, was some aide or other. He started to move for his own gun, saw Riss’s leveled pistol, froze, and backed out into the corridor, his hands raised chest high.

  Riss kicked the door closed in his face and made for the com.

  “I think,�
�� she said, dialing, in a classic of understatement, “things may have changed a little while we were cuddling.”

  She looked over at the sprawled body. “The king is dead…. Long live the king. Poor sorry bastard.”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Star Risk was glooming in its quarters the day after the king’s memorial service.

  Prince Wahfer’s body had been ceremoniously cursed, since his coup collapsed instantly. No one cared about the circumstances of his death.

  In addition to Star Risk’s other moils and toils, the Shaoki, emboldened by the royal deaths and the rather confused directorate that the royalty of Khelat had cobbled together, had gone back to shooting a mean almost guerrilla war on Irdis, and open warfare on the uninvaded worlds.

  There was only one bright note. Jasmine’s program had run its course very smoothly:

  Star Risk’s, and its employees’, paychecks for two months in advance, plus the contracted victory bonus, had been neatly and automatically lifted from the Khelat national treasury and bounced through six worlds’ state banks before ending up in a nice, anonymous number-call bank account on a seventh world — not Trimalchio IV.

  “So we should just say stick it, and go home,” Goodnight said.

  “I vote we remain here. There are still Shaoki to kill,” Grok said.

  “Enough slaughter for the moment,” Jasmine counseled, patting Grok’s paw. “Practice peace and philosophical ponderings.”

  “If I have to,” Grok grunted. “But I do not have to like it.”

  “We signed a contract,” Riss argued. “And it’s not fulfilled.”

  Goodnight snorted.

  “This from the woman who started all this double-doublecrossing. How pious!”

  “It is not piety,” von Baldur said. “It is a matter of common decency and moral justice. We have never broken a contract — yet — without cause.”

  “True,” Goodnight said. “Looks like crap on the old résumé.”

  “I suggest,” Riss said, “that we all think about this situation a bit, and meet maybe tomorrow and vote on it.”

  “I do remind you,” King said, “that if we decide to be upright and moral, we’ll have to give the bonus back.”

  “Gad,” Goodnight drawled. “Do you think we are but whores for the common day, concerned only with our bankbooks?”