Princess Valerie's War

by Terry Mancour

  “ But that’s a distraction. Rivington is still holding out fine, but a thousand-footer landed southeast of town – Control says it’s the merchantman Voltlily – and landed troops who are now cutting north across country towards the city. Or at least they’re trying to. On their way down they took out one of the ground emplacements, and they shot at Camp Valiant and Tradetown, but they missed. I, uh, have my hands full now, but that’s the situation in orbit. Looking forward to seeing you. Soon. A whole lot,” the officer added wistfully as the screen lit up with the silent glare of explosions outside of the camera’s range.

  “Let’s stick with the plan,” Harkaman declared. “I’m transferring back to the Corisande. Flavia, you and Corisande will take out those two raiders, the rest of you concentrate on countering the Voltlily’s assault. Scratch that: Star of Tanith, you focus on eliminating the pinnaces; the other two ships can help out Rivington. If we don’t clear the skies, then winning on the ground won’t matter when they dump a hellburner on us,” he said, grimly. “Where’s that shuttle?” he asked, as he nearly ran from the command chair back towards his own better-armed and armored warship.

  The fleet winked out of existence and then back into it within only a few seconds, millions of miles closer to the sun and right on top of the planet.

  The two heavier craft immediately began to accelerate in normal space to bring aid to the Moon Goddess, which was circling around the wounded Gunloggi and keeping the two Space Vikings at bay with counter missiles – and not very many of them. They must have been battling for a while, then, Harkaman realized.

  A full day wasn’t as long as it seemed in space combat – when you’re crossing planetary distances and negotiating gravity wells and atmospheres, a “space battle” could include hours and hours of merely waiting for the right orbital position or distance from a planet’s atmosphere, followed by short, intense bursts of violence. Or it could be a kind of sustained cat-and-mouse game, one that stretched minutes into hours as ships competed for range.

  But the Battle of Tanith, while it had lingered as the two sides tested each other, had already gone on for over a solid day, and the attackers and defenders alike were running low on ammunition and other vital supplies. As soon as the Corisande came out of hyperspace, she dodged a half-hearted barrage of missiles from the Lamia and then started around the planet clockwise towards the other invaders. The Queen Flavia started around counterclockwise, spiraling in descent. It would still take an hour to come within range of the two ships harassing the Tanith defenders, but in the mean time both ships launched all their pinnaces to counter the foe.

  He took the time to find out who was in charge where: Malyn Stark, an old Space Viking hand Harkaman had known for years, was running the moonbase defenses – he was an old Guns-and-Missiles man, so he wasn’t too worried about that station.

  The situation on the Lamia was more pressing: a gang of saboteurs and mercenaries had taken over the fire control room and the bridge. Count Van Larch was leading a desperate deck-by-deck battle to regain control of the ship from the engine room. He was too busy to report in, but relayed the message that he thought he’d have the Lamia back in Tanith hands in another four or five hours. In the mean time, Otto could put his attention elsewhere.

  “Elsewhere” was Rivington. It took him nearly five minutes to get through to speak with Duke Paytrik, who was leading the Home Guard troops in defense of the city. He caught the man between dispatches, apparently, in a field command center. He was in full Home Guard combat armor, black with blue trim, but he’d laid aside his combat helmet and was sipping from a flask when he came to the screen. His carbine was still slung, ready at his side, and his belt knife had bloodstains on the hilt.

  “Otto!” he said, excitedly. “And in the nick of time.”

  “Paytrik, what happened?” Harkaman asked.

  “About twenty hours after you spaced out,” the Home Minister, said, after taking a sip and a sigh, “a couple of merchant ships came in, one regularly-scheduled one from Beowulf with more missiles, one independent five-hundred footer. We didn’t think anything of it – the Beowulf transport had the proper security codes, and the merchant has been here twice already. In fact, he sold his cargo at a good price – mostly Agnian cob oil and some silver – and spaced back out again within twenty hours, ostensibly bound for Gimli.

  “Only he didn’t go to Gimli. He went to report to Spasso. Forty hours after he left, we detected the first emergences. We were hoping it was Lucas, of course, but . . . well, it wasn’t. It was five ships. Three Space Vikings and two armed merchantmen, and a half-dozen armed pinnaces. That’s when they took the Lamia, and the Lamia started shooting at the lunar base.”

  “Great Satan’s beard!” growled Harkaman. “What happened then?”

  “The Gunloggi had just come in, and they couldn’t have planned on that, but otherwise their timing was impeccable: the Relentless and the Curse of Cagn both spaced out of here just hours before, or we would have stopped them at the stratosphere. As it was, the Moon Goddess and Gunloggi kept them busy for about twelve hours while they tried to decelerate. But they couldn’t be everywhere at once.

  “There were three ships attacking, and even though we got one of them – I don’t know what the name was – the other two kept them busy. The two merchant ships got through. One landed south of here, one landed north, between Rivington and Tradetown. Troop carriers,” he explained. “They were ready for this. They knew they couldn’t land right in Rivington, thanks to all of the anti-aircraft defenses, so they put down outside of our secure zones and tried to move overland.”

  “You had a response ready, I take it?”

  The Duke grinned broadly. “You bet we did! From what I can tell, Spasso figured he’d stir up trouble for us with Motarka. Last time he was here, Motarka hated us, remember? Now he’s our best friend. They put about three thousand men in the field in Katoland, but only twenty-five hundred of those made it to Rivington.

  “Our civil defense program worked like a charm, especially when we spread word of an ounce of gold bounty for every invader shot. They had planned on starting a peasant uprising. Instead they got sniper fire in every village they stopped in. But they did have a lot of combat contragravity, and they were able to establish a beachhead south of town, near the ruined suburbs.”

  Like any contragravity-using civilization, the original settlers of Tanith had designed their capital city with ample room between buildings, and settlements. While the center of the city had been densely built to facilitate commerce and industry, most of the original residential sections had been in pockets of small, circular-shaped suburbs up in a fifty-mile radius around Rivington, proper. Five hundred years of decay had taken their toll, and most of the suburbs were merely crumbling ruins. But they would provide ample cover, Harkaman realized, especially if they were trying to invest the city.

  “They did the same thing from the north, with better results,” admitted Morland, taking another sip. “About thirty-five hundred mercenary infantry got through. By that time the enemy pinnaces were in the atmosphere, and they strafed the city to give their infantry cover.

  “And that’s not all: Spasso had some sort of fifth-columnists in the city. Strategically-important areas were struck with bombs or lighting raids – we lost a lot of people,” he said, sadly. “We took back the Planetary building, but on the north side of town Spasso’s people are holed up in the other big tower. They’ve got a swarm of contragravity around it, and they’re setting up artillery pieces. They already have air-tanks positioned to cover our missile sites. So I have foes on both sides of the city,” he counted on one hand, “a bunch of insurgents and saboteurs running around inside, and not enough combat contragravity to counter it.”

  “But on the bright side?” Harkaman prompted. If Morland didn’t think he was in control of the situation, he would have sensed it by now.

  “On the bright side I have six or seven thousand highly motivated Home Guard troops wh
o are passionately defending their homeworld from a man that is widely believed to be a demon,” Morland chuckled. “My boys are motivated. And there’s a few thousand local farmboys with rifles and dreams of glory harassing them from all sides. Next time we’re in council and Valpry starts shooting off his mouth about arming the locals, remind me to remind him about this.”

  “What about the Royal Army?”

  “Nick gave operational control of them to Colonel Festersan,” he said. “I’ve got the southern front, here, and Festersan is attacking their stronghold in the tower now. But that’s not all of their troops. Pinnaces landed across the north, where we’ve been developing those little towns, and dropped off troops. They hold three or four of them now, outright, and the others are fighting pitched battles. And there’s also a couple of thousand infantry protecting Tradetown: Spasso sent a raiding party over there to shoot up the place from a distance, but they haven’t made any moves towards it. I think that they’re waiting for reinforcements.”

  “From where?” Harkaman asked, mystified. “Unless those warships can come down out of orbit . . .”

  “I think they pushed too fast and over-extended themselves,” Morland reasoned. “This is what, Spasso’s third time trying to attack Rivington?”

  “Ah, yes, have we heard from the esteemed Count Spasso?”

  “He set up a temporary telecast station at the ruined tower and has been broadcasting a taped message, urging the people of Tanith to rise up and overthrow their cruel overlords – that’s us, in case you haven’t been taking notes – and live a better, happier life under Uncle Garvan and his revered and lawful liege, Omfray of Gram. But I haven’t heard any sightings of him, personally. I’d guess he’s either on one of those ships or directing his side of the battle from some hole in the ground.”

  “Well if you find him,” Harkaman said, “Then take him alive. I have special plans for him.”

  “Will do, Admiral. Now, if you excuse me, I have a battle to run. Oh – did you find Princess Elaine?”

  “Safe and sound and in her mother’s arms,” Harkaman assured.

  That made Morland grin even more broadly. “Best news I’ve had today! Wait until I tell the troops. Some of them will see it as a sign of divine favor.”

  “I’m not sure it isn’t,” confessed Harkaman. “Well, we’ll send you some help as soon as we get down, Pat. Take care.”

  The next person he tried to call was Nikkolay Trask, who was also in combat armor. He had a command center in the government section designed for just such emergencies, and Harkaman could see a couple of clerical robots and his aid, Sir Whatshisface, standing deferentially behind him.

  “Nick!” Otto called. “How goes the battle?”

  “Better, now that the Warlord is here with the fleet,” the Prime Minister admitted. “It’s been a rough couple of days, Otto. This Spasso character is starting to seriously annoy me.”

  “Stand in line,” Harkaman said, gruffly, adding a description of their foe’s anatomical deficiencies, ancestry, and choice of intimate companions that had taken years of living in space around combat troopers to perfect. “But what’s your present situation?”

  “We’ve maintained hold over the city center,” Nikkolay said, sending him an image of a tactical map. “Most of my reserve forces are holding the spaceport complex – there’s no way I’m letting them get that! I’ve got two divisions of RATs here at the Planetary building, and mostly we’re trading pot shots with the northern tower and dueling with contragravity. We’ve lost two of the anti-aircraft guns on the top floors, and were running low on missiles, that’s the bad news. The good news is we just landed a squad of Golden Hand commandos in their tower, and we’re moving two companies around their flanks to cut them off from their ship. They’re attacking Tradetown, too, but not as aggressively – I think it’s more to pin us down. But if you can take care of their reinforcements in orbit, I’ll be able to keep things stable down here until you can land.”

  “Help is on the way, Prime Minister,” Harkaman promised. “And it won’t have to wait for me to mop up these two buckets.”

  As if summoned, the three smaller ships in the fleet winked back into existence much closer to the planet’s gravity well than the Corisande. The Star of Tanith began climbing to strike back at the enemy pinnaces, with the goal of trying to board the Lamia, while the other two vessels began a rapid descent towards Rivington, where a battle was already raging around the city. It was nearly dusk there, now, and there were several plumes of black smoke surrounding the city, but the metropolis itself seemed intact. The Princess Valerie and the Golden Hand immediately launched their pinnaces, which went to join the fight or proceed to other sensitive missions.

  Otto felt a surge of concern, knowing that Valerie had the baby with her, going into battle, but then again they weren’t directly engaging any enemy ships, and even if they did they were as well protected as anyone could be. It would take a lot to blow the sturdy Gram-built Princess Valerie out of the sky, and he knew the Golden Hand – whose crew included plenty of the devoted guardsmen – would sacrifice itself long before the Princess V would be in danger. He knew Countess Dorothy was aboard Valerie’s ship, too, and that made him feel more secure about the matter. In a number of ways.

  “And it will please you to know,” Harkaman continued into the screen, after he’d informed the Prime Minister of the arrival of the fleet, “that your baby cousin is safe and sound. Completely clean extraction. And you have young Karvall to thank for that. Val knighted him on the spot.”

  “Nobly done,” Nick said, approvingly. He looked instantly relieved. “And joyous news. I’ve got my wife and son hunkered down in a bunker, over in New Traskon, but I’ve been worried sick we’d never see little Elaine again. I’ll spread the news. If everyone else feels like I do, then Spasso’s men are about to get hit, hard!”

  After he signed off, Harkaman had tactical issues to deal with for a while, and then he had a moment to catch his breath while the Corisande sped towards the other side of the world. There was little Harkaman could do about Rivington, Princess Valerie, or anything else but the battle before him now, he knew. And that was still easily an hour or so away. One of the hardest things about being a supreme military commander in the middle of a pitched battle was the desire to be in several critical places at once. It just wasn’t possible.

  But he and the Queen Flavia would do their part. The Star Hunter and the Dilemma were his targets, and it was his job to worry about them, now. The rest of the battle would have to be won by those to whom the task fell. He only hoped that the price of such a battle would not become too dear.

  Chapter Eight:

  The Battle Of Tanith

  Valerie bit her lip as the ship which bore her name trembled when it hit the atmosphere. The first few moments of reentry were always a little rough, as the Abbots tried to counter the resistance the air put up against the ship, and the pseudogravs struggled to keep up with the changing field-state. But once they were well and truly inserted, the trembling subsided and the ship began to sink further and further into the warm blanket of air.

  Valerie had the pinnaces launched immediately. Two of them would assist in the air cover a number of contragravity ships were providing over the Planetary building, and the other two would go to Katoland, where the Voltlily squatted and oozed enemies. The pinnaces of the Golden Hand were headed right into the thick of battle, which seemed to be centered southeast of town beyond the spaceport, the guards’ warship behind them.

  While she waited, she held Elaine in her lap. She’d spent most of the voyage back home getting re-acquainted with her baby girl. If the abduction had harmed the child in any way, it wasn’t apparent – she was the same bright-eyed, pretty little baby who had been stolen from her, albeit a couple of pounds heavier and a lot more alert and interested in the universe around her.

  She had no idea that she was in the middle of a battle to determine her future. She just liked all of the brig
ht lights and interesting sounds.

  What kind of mother brings a baby into the middle of a space battle? Valerie chastised herself.

  The kind who marries a handsome Space Viking Prince and agrees to share his throne and his fortunes, she answered herself with an internal sigh. Valerie had no regrets about her choice, she decided. She loved Lucas, loved Tanith, loved Elaine, and she loved the job she had gotten with the wedding ring. She had vowed in front of the universe on her wedding and coronation day that she would devote her life to seeing Tanith live and prosper. And once she’d made that commitment, she was determined to see it through. One battle at a time.

  Grimly she studied the first reports coming through her special command console. The situation around Rivington looked deadly, but stable. A line about two miles wide had developed between the invaders – they looked about three-thousand strong – and the defenders, who had a distinct numerical advantage on the ground. But the invaders had brought along a lot of combat contragravity, armored cavalry, and artillery, and the air around the city was filled with dogfights between combat cars and aircav mounts and even a few big cannon-weilding combat airboats.