Kingdom's Swords

by David Sherman

  "Then give me a gun and we're off," Ramadan said.

  Captain Conorado rummaged through his luggage until he found it. The antique pistol was almost small enough to hide comfortably in the palm of his hand. He examined it closely now because he'd had no time to look at it when Dean and Claypoole had presented him with the thing back in Lima Company's orderly room. In fact, had he thought about it at the time, he wouldn't have bothered to pack the weapon in the first place.

  It had a detachable magazine that fit snugly into a well in the butt. He pressed the stud on the right side of the grip and the magazine popped out. The magazine was spring loaded. There was a spot of rust on it. Rust on a weapon? Conorado smiled to himself as he thumbed seven tiny cartridges out onto his bed. He'd be sure to remind those lads about their dreadful lack of maintenance, giving him a rusty weapon, even if it might save his and everybody else's life on the ship!

  Conorado was familiar with the projectile weapons the Siad warriors had used on Elneal, so the tiny pistol held no mystery for him. He just wondered if seven rounds of .32 caliber ammunition would be enough to bring down three full-grown, determined men. Well, this particular pistol had worked well enough on Wanderjahr. Claypoole had killed a man with it at close range, shot him in the head, so it would do the job here—if he didn't miss.

  Conorado knew that in any kind of face-off with firearms, the first shot was the one that counted; not necessarily the size or power of the bullet fired, but where it hit the opponent. The central nervous system would be best. Disabling that would bring a man down instantly. A bullet in the heart or an artery would kill a man but not necessarily prevent him from getting off a shot of his own even after being hit. But Conorado realized if he couldn't get a head shot, he'd have to shoot at the center of mass, the chest. And how many bullets would it take to bring down a man with a gun like this? Two? If he could only get one of the three men on the bridge alone, he was sure he could bring him down with the tiny pistol and take his more potent blaster. Then he'd have a fighting chance!

  He reinserted the empty magazine, worked the slide, and dry-fired the pistol several times to get the feel of it. The action was smooth and it did not take much pressure on the trigger to trip the hammer when it was all the way down. If he cocked the hammer first, the gun would fire with almost no pressure at all on the trigger. There was a lever on the left side of the gun's slide; when he pressed it downward, it decocked the hammer. As far as he could tell, that was the only safety device. He fiddled with the empty pistol for a while, then reloaded the magazine, pulled the slide back, and put the gun into battery. He decocked the weapon. He was ready. He would shoot his man at very close range, less than a meter, so aiming should be no problem. He wondered how much noise the gun would make when it fired. So long as it fired, that did not matter.

  Conorado stood up and slipped the loaded pistol into a pocket of his coveralls. How would he get to his first man? "Important information" for their leader? What? What kind of information could he possibly dream up that'd get him on the bridge and make one of the terrorists let his guard down for only a second? He'd think of something. But wait a second! As soon as he brought his man down, that goddamned computer would sound the alarm, like it did when the terrorists killed the engineers in the propulsion plant! He took a deep breath. Oh-kaaaay, he'd have to get all three of them at the same time. He'd have to get to the bridge or wherever the three of them were congregating. That'd mean two quick pops apiece and one bullet left over for emergencies. Now what kind of cover story could he come up with to get that close to all three of them? Think! Think! he told himself. Conorado sighed. I don't have a chance, he thought. Then: What the hell? They won't be expecting an attack and I'll hurt them at least, and by God I'll go down fighting!

  Conorado smiled. At least he wouldn't be facing that kangaroo court at the end of this voyage! He shook his head, squared his shoulders, and stepped out into the companionway.

  Ramadan drove the Dragon while Buskerud navigated. In places the road into the mountains disappeared completely under heavy snow cover, and as they drove higher and higher, Ramadan began to worry about running off the roadway and over one of the dizzying cliffs that fell away into deep gorges. "Do not vorry, Colonel, I knows de vay!" Buskerud crowed happily as he monitored the terrain through the Dragon's onboard navigation system. "Ah, dis is a wunnerful machine, Colonel, wunnerful!"

  "You ain't seen nothing yet!" Ramadan answered over the tactical net. "Watch me take out that peak over there!"

  "No, no, Colonel! No!" Buskerud protested, not sure whether Ramadan was joking or not. "Dere is good chance of big landslide! Besides, de vay sound carries in dese mountains, firing your gun could warn de peoples at the chalet. Ve are only a few kilometers from dere now."

  "All right. You tell me when to park this thing and we'll go take a look-see."

  After about twenty more minutes of climbing they reached a pass between two peaks where Buskerud indicated Ramadan should pull over to the side of the road, which had been exposed at that spot by the gale-force wind howling down between the peaks. The visibility there was greatly reduced by blown snow.

  Buskerud opened an equipment bag he'd brought with him and took out snowshoes. "Ve vill need dese, Colonel. The chalet is in de forest on de leeward side ov de mountain, so da snow vill be very deep dere. Alzo, be absolutely sure dere iss no exposed skin on your face, or it vill freeze in dis weather." They shrugged into heavy parkas and strapped on the snowshoes. Ramadan showed Buskerud how to use the tactical headgear he provided from the Dragon's equipment locker.

  "We'll need this to communicate in that weather," he said. Then he showed Buskerud how to operate the shoulder-fired blaster he gave him from the onboard weapons locker. "I will walk the point," Ramadan said. "You guide me from a few paces behind and be ready to support me if we run into any hostile fire. Handling these blasters through gloves will be awkward, but just remember, do not touch the firing lever until you are ready to shoot and sure of your target. And don't forget, Ollie, I'll be in front of your muzzle." He grinned and slapped Buskerud on the back. "Ready?" Buskerud nodded, and then Ramadan lowered the Dragon's ramp. A cloud of windblown snow gusted into the Dragon as they stomped down the ramp and onto the road.

  "Go left, Colonel," Buskerud said into his throat mike. "Dere is a path about thirty meters behind vere ve are parked. You vill see it as an opening in de trees. De chalet is about half a kilometer back in de voods."

  They slogged into the lee of the mountain and suddenly the wind died away. Under the trees, heavily laden with snow, it was so quiet the men could hear their snowshoes crunching on the frozen crust beneath them. But each breath burned with the cold, and visibility under the trees was almost zero because of the fine mist created by the ice crystals suspended in the air. "De trees vill thin out ven ve get near to de chalet, Colonel, and den de vind vill pick up again, so be careful."

  Ramadan guessed from the level of the snow packed up against the trees that it was at least two meters deep where they were. In time Ramadan began to sweat beneath his parka, but he paced himself carefully. The temperature under the trees had to be way below freezing, but out of the wind there was not a chill factor to deal with. Although the air burned fiercely as he sucked it in, he knew his body would heat it sufficiently by the time it got to his lungs so it would not do any damage. Long strings of ice began to form around the opening in his face mask, the frozen condensation of his breath. The trees began to thin. "Are we near the chalet yet?" he asked.

  "Yes," Buskerud answered.

  The wind picked up again, and suddenly Ramadan could make out in a clearing to his front a rustic building buried almost to its eaves in snow. "There it is," he whispered. He crouched beside the nearest tree. Buskerud came up and knelt beside him. They were silent for a few moments, catching their breath. A gust of wind howled across the clearing, swirling a cloud of snow that temporarily obscured the chalet. Ramadan put his arm around Buskerud's shoulders. "I'm going
in first," he said, "when the next gust comes along. You cover me from here. Any fire from that house, you return it at once. Otherwise, come on up when I get to the front of the building. Have you been in touch with Hamnes?"

  "Yes, Colonel, all along, as you showed me how to do with dis communications system."

  "Okay. Soon as I move out you tell him we're going in and he should back us up as soon as there's a team available that can get up to this pass. But Ollie, we're on our own. Any resistance and we'll have to fight. Ready?"

  "Ready, Colonel." Ollie Buskerud was familiar with danger. He had survived landslides, deadly falls, unexpected winter storms, and seen many other men die in the mountains. But he had never killed anyone. He checked the safety on his blaster. It was off. He clicked it on and off several times, to be sure it had not frozen in the safe position. He held the weapon carefully, as Ramadan had showed him, at what he called the "high ready" position, butt under his right armpit, muzzle held up at about thirty degrees above his midsection, ready to employ the weapon from the shoulder or the hip in a 180-degree arc from where he crouched.

  Ramadan disappeared into the next gust of wind, and before the snow had blown away, the colonel was nearly at the cabin door. Buskerud started after him. His breath sounded harsh in his ears as he shuffled quickly along on the top of the hard-frozen snow. "We are going in!" he announced over the command net, confident that the Dragon's system would relay his words immediately to Inspector Hamnes back in New Oslo. "Send backup," he half shouted. Hamnes knew precisely where the pair were from the GPS devices they carried that connected them to the string-of-pearls in orbit.

  "None available!" Hamnes answered immediately. "Not until the storm clears. Be careful. Keep in touch with me, Ollie!"

  Ramadan stepped lightly on the porch. The goddamned door was open! He slammed through with his shoulder and rolled immediately to his right once inside, his blaster at the ready. "Ollie! Ollie!" he shouted over the tactical net. "Get in here right now!"

  "Attention on the bridge!" Minerva screamed. "There is a passenger in the companionway! There is a passenger loose on the ship! It is Captain Lewis Conorado! Attention on the bridge!"

  I'm in for it now, Conorado thought as he hurried along the passageway. A figure suddenly appeared before him. It was the man called Merab or something. He leveled his hand-blaster at Conorado and ordered him to return to his stateroom.

  Conorado raised his hands and stopped. "I must talk to your leader," he pleaded.

  "No! Return to your place at once or I will shoot."

  "Listen! I have something to tell you. It's very important. Please, I must talk to your leader. Look, I'm unarmed. I represent no threat to you." He could feel the tiny bulk of the pistol in his right pocket as he spoke.

  "What?"

  "I am not a Marine officer. I'm an intelligence agent planted on board this ship. We know what it is you are going to do but I was not quick enough to stop you. There are weapons cached on the ship, and my men and I were to use them against you. But you have to understand, my superiors expected a message from me hours ago, assuring them you had been neutralized. When that message was not sent, they instituted Plan B." Conorado was thinking fast now. What the hell would Plan B consist of anyway?

  "Plan B?" Merab asked.

  "Yes. The Confederation has dispatched a cruiser to destroy this vessel. They cannot afford to be embarrassed by you. They are going to sacrifice all of us to avoid that. We only have a few minutes before the strike. I must talk to your leader right now!"

  Merab hesitated, then said, "Very well, come with me." He motioned Conorado forward with his blaster, keeping as far away from the Marine as he could when Conorado walked past him toward the bridge.

  Conorado stepped onto the bridge first. Sabbath Lordsday whirled around in the captain's chair. "What is the captain doing here?"

  "Brother Sabbath, this man has important news I thought you should hear," Merab said. The third terrorist who had been at the ship's computer console stepped toward Conorado.

  It was now or never. Pulling out the tiny pistol, Conorado spun halfway around and shot Merab in the neck. The discharge made a loud crack, and the pistol recoiled sharply in Conorado's hand. Merab staggered backward, one hand clapped to his left external carotid artery. Conorado then swung toward Lordsday in the captain's chair and shot him full in the face. The round entered Lordsday's left nostril and lodged in his frontal sinus; not a fatal wound, but extremely painful and bloody. Lordsday clapped his hands to his face and staggered out of the chair, where he sprawled on the deck, shrieking in agony. Conorado whirled and faced the third terrorist, the one called Jesse Gospel, and shot him in the chest three times from very close range. Gospel swung his blaster up toward Conorado, and Conorado, taking aim over the pistol's tiny sights, shot him once more in the chest. Gospel staggered and then collapsed to the deck, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

  Conorado let out his breath. The whole scene had not lasted more than five seconds. Lordsday was on his knees, gasping, "Unnng, unnng, unnnnnnnng," but he had drawn his blaster and was pointing it straight at Conorado. Without hesitating, Conorado fired. The tiny bullet entered Lordsday's forehead. His eyes went wide for an instant before he pitched forward on the deck, stone dead. Conorado had aimed instinctively and fired without thinking. He looked down in surprise at the pistol in his hand, its slide locked back on the empty magazine. After the first shot, he hadn't noticed the thing going off or the recoil.

  Now he was acutely aware of Minerva shrieking an alarm: "Brother Lordsday, Brother Lordsday!" the computer voice screamed. "People on the bridge are out of order! All available crew report to the bridge immediately! Repeat—"

  "Minerva! Shut up, will you?" Conorado shouted. He stepped over to where Merab lay. He was still alive. His face had turned a sickly white and the blood spurting through his fingers was coming in weak streams now, but he was trying to say something, working his lips silently.

  "I do not understand that command," Minerva whined.

  Conorado ignored her. He knelt beside Merab. "Listen, you, it's all over. I want the password to the computer system. Give it to me. Now."

  "Our Father..." Merab gasped. He looked at Conorado desperately. "Would you...?" he asked. Conorado took his free hand and recited the Lord's Prayer with the dying man. Merab smiled weakly. "God bless you," he said, and died.

  "Brother Lordsday, please give me commands. I do not understand ‘Shut up,’" Minerva reported.

  Conorado sighed and stood up. His legs were like rubber as the effects of the adrenaline that had pumped him up during the fight began to wear off. The hand holding the gun was shaking. He dropped the empty magazine and let the slide go forward. Dean and Claypoole, he thought, shaking his head. What a pair. He wondered idly where he could get some more bullets for the antique firearm and then dropped it back into his pocket. He reached down and picked up one of the blasters. He put the safety on.

  Lewis Conorado, Captain, CMC, looked over the bridge. The deck was splattered with blood. His own bloody footprints were everywhere. It had been a long, long time since he had killed anyone up close. Well, he'd had no choice. He asked aloud, "Now what?" But Minerva remained silent.

  A body lay sprawled on the floor of the cabin. It was freezing cold inside, and Ramadan's breath came through his face mask in white clouds of condensation. "Oh, my God," he whispered. He rolled the body over. A frozen tendril of blood stretched down the woman's face from a wound in her eye. "Oh, thank God!" Ramadan almost shouted when he saw that she was not Marta Conorado.

  Buskerud clattered through the door behind him, his snowshoes making a racket on the wooden floor. "Is it...?" he asked, a sinking feeling in his guts.

  "No, no," Ramadan shouted, straightening up. "It's not Marta. Where—"

  "Colonel, der is a path in da snow! Two peoples! Dey haf gone oud dere. Quick! De vind is covering it up!" Buskerud pointed out the door with one arm. "But Colonel, be careful. Dat way iss a drop off
, maybe one thousand meters into da Ume River valley. I be right behind you!"

  Ramadan pushed past Buskerud back out into the storm. Sure enough, there was a faint trail in the snow leading away from the cabin. Already the wind was covering it.

  Marta had never felt such pain as she did then on the exposed parts of her face and ears. She flung an arm across her face to block out some of the wind-driven snow, but there was nothing she could do about her ears, which quickly began to burn in the fierce subzero cold. Her hair flapped about her head in frozen dreadlocks. The fingers on her right hand began to hurt excruciatingly. She buried them in a pocket and flung her left arm across her face as she staggered onward. Within a few meters of the cabin, which she could not even see anymore through the blizzard, she began to tire. In some places the snow was up to her chest. She stumbled and fell many times. Her breath came in ragged gasps and the air burned like fire as she eagerly sucked it in. She fell again and lay facedown in the snow. Ah, the burning pain was subsiding! It was so good to rest. How far had she come from the cabin? A good ways, she thought. They would never find her out here. In the back of her mind somewhere she realized she would die if she didn't get under cover, but she didn't care. She just wanted to rest, to sleep, to dream. Oh, how wonderful to rest. She thought of her children and Lewis and wondered, idly, what they were doing right now. Camilla, her daughter, she took after Lewis in so many ways.

  "Bitch!" Bengt screamed. He grabbed Marta by the hair and pulled her out of the snow. "You are not going to die so easy, bitch! I'm taking you back to the cabin. You'll varm up and den—den I vill use you and use you, and ven I am done wid you, I vill kill you, Mrs. Marine goddamned cunt, slow, painful you die, and I enjoys everytink I gonna do to you!"