Princess Valerie's War

by Terry Mancour

  Smoke plumes rose from at least two dozen impact areas where the losers of the aerial fight had ended the battle, including two which poured from the upper floors of the Planetary Building – but that was a good sign, Valerie reminded herself as they approached the city.

  That meant that Tanith’s defenses were holding.

  * * *

  Sir Alexi had volunteered for this mission: leading a strike team to try to disable the merchant ship Voltlily, where it had disgorged its troops in Katoland. Her Highness herself had directed that he take command of one of her pinnaces and wanted him to be certain to relieve Lord Motarka, if needed, as well as capture the merchantman intact if possible. His pinnace had nearly a hundred infantry crammed into it, and six aircav mounts had been stuffed into the small hold. The moment he was able to decelerate below Mach One, he prepared for a lightning-quick deployment.

  He was fairly familiar with the country, thanks to the action he saw there last year, and he had done a few stints training its troops with the rest of the Golden Hand. Orbital images showed that the Voltlilly had landed on a wide plateau on the south side of the east-west running Alta Fresca range, just a few miles away from Ka-Motarka’s fortress. As he came within a few miles of the ship he called for enhanced views, discovering that the ship had set up machine gun emplacements and missile launchers to discourage visitors – as he learned when they lobbed one in his direction.

  “Hang on tight, fellows,” he called down to the over-cramped quarters on the deck below. “We’ll be making for House Motarka now – when we arrive, deploy as directed.” There was a welcome shout from belowdecks – it was getting stuffy down there.

  Sir Alexi had expected to see Motarka Castle occupied or burning, but it was peaceful, save for several additional guards and some recent aircar crash scars. A Royal Army of Tanith squad was on the roof, running an anti-aircraft missile battery. When they saw his colors they waved, cheerfully. It took a few moments to establish radio contact with their commander.

  “We’ve been here most of the day and only fired a few shots,” explained the corporal in charge, once he came to the receiver. “Duke Morland thought that they’d use this place as a base, but they by-passed us and went north, through the pass, towards Rivington.”

  “What about Lord Motarka?” Karvall asked, surprised.

  “Ol’ Mo?” chuckled the trooper, “he and his household weren’t content to stand here and hold a castle no one was trying to take. So he took about five hundred men and went to attack that ship.”

  “He what?” Sir Alexi asked, confused. “He’s got some infantry, but . . .”

  “Don’t sell the old man short,” the corporal said, almost apologetically. “He’s using the aircar the Realm gave him to set up snipers in the trees around the ship. They haven’t been able to go outside to take a whiz without one of his neobarbs making them duck!”

  “Good to know . . . where is the venerable commander now?”

  “About three klicks south of the ship, in an old well-house. Or at least, last time we looked. He’s directing the battle from there.”

  “Understood, corporal. Carry on. Oh, by the way – we got the princess back,” he added, casually. Karvall swore the cheer he heard was so loud he could have listened to it without the radio being on.

  It didn’t take long to find Ka-Motarka’s field headquarters, a small roughly-built springhouse of undressed stone and logs. The neobarb baron had parked his aircar behind it, and set up a small tent, and there were three other aircars parked there as well. Men on beasts or on foot came and went through the tent door, and alert locals stood sentry duty, eager for an opportunity to shoot their shiny new rifles. But it didn’t have the sloppiness that Karvall had become accustomed to in his time on Mertha. Apparently Ka-Motarka was made of sterner stuff than the late Barsaro. The tough old neobarb lord was directing the whole assault like an experienced campaigner.

  Sir Alexi did have to be careful, however, and made a point of flying by to display the blue trapezoid-and-circle blazon on the side of the pinnace, to keep from getting shot at, before he landed nearby and let his troops spill out into the field, but he felt gratified that his men were that eager to engage the enemy.

  He was challenged twice by sentries as he approached the tent, but a simple flash of his golden hand insignia was all the password he needed. He found Motarka in the tent, looking at a computer-drawn map of the hill above. There were two Home Guard troopers and a couple of old Space Vikings in battered combat armor also in attendance, one of whom was shy a leg below the knee.

  “Baron Motarka,” Karvall said, bowing formally by habit. “Princess Valerie sent me to help. I brought men and vehicles. What is our situation?”

  The warlord spoke haltingly in Lingua Terra, a language he was still learning, until one of the Home Guard troopers – a sergeant – spoke up.

  “It’s pretty basic, Sir,” he reported. “The ship is on that plateau, its five hundred feet above us, and they’ve got contragravity patrols to keep us pinned down if we try to go up the only path to it. They’re dug in, put up sandbags and temporary barriers to protect the entrance. I think the plan is that they’re the getaway if the troops don’t take Rivington, so they aren’t going anywhere. They’re just well defended, and they know it.

  “They have a couple of machine gun nests and a couple of small rocket launchers, so we can’t get anything big too close, except for a few snipers. Ol’ Zeke, here, he’s got a couple of men set up with mortars on the west side, and Lord Justin, here, has a 70mm gun that’s keeping them from bringing anything down. But they’re well covered, and the ship’s made of collapsium, so mortars don’t do much if we don’t hit the sensitive spots. So it’s a stalemate.”

  “Interesting,” Sir Alexi said, pursing his lips. Justin and Zeke, he remembered, were two combat veterans who had retired on Tanith, lured by the Home Ministry’s program of settlement. They both looked very enthusiastic about the prospect of attacking the Voltlily – apparently country life did not make up for the excitement of Space Viking life.

  “Well, we could just evacuate, stand off in the pinnace and hit them with missiles until they gave up or blew up. But where is the fun in that? I think we can take them. We just need to deploy our resources properly. Hmmm. Let me suggest . . .” he said, and then sketched out a plan. The others approved eagerly, although there was some question of who was going to bear the brunt of the defense. “It might get a little bloody, but then if we want that omelet on that bluff, we’re going to have to crack a few eggs to get it. So . . . two hours?”

  The little war council was very enthusiastic about the plan, since it involved a gallant head-on charge up the hill. They started with an artillery barrage from the mortars and the field piece, focusing on the hardened emplacements. They got lucky early on and killed the crew of the missile launcher, and apparently damaged the equipment, but the machinegun nests were cunningly made and hard to hit effectively.

  Then the barrage ceased, and a few advanced parties scaled the slope up to the bluff to a position close enough to snipe at the machinegunners. They took potshots at the mercenaries for nearly half an hour, just keeping them on edge while they were taking ranges. While the enemies had their heads down, three of the air cavalry mounts that Sir Alexi had brought rose from the treeline and began to dogfight the ship’s defending mounts. Quad machineguns built into the little egg-shaped armored fliers hammered through the cool, moist air as the sun went down.

  Dusk was the signal for the infantry to attack. They didn’t need much encouragement. With the aircav mounts too busy to strafe them and the machinegunners too worried about snipers to make an effort, five hundred screaming neobarbarian warriors, armed with simple defense rifles or even matchlocks and swords, screamed shrill war-cries as they poured up the slope. A few fell, as the defenders were able to get off a burst in their direction, but the attackers made it more than half way up before they slowed to a stop and fired en-masse at the ship. The ma
chinegunners above them finally got the nerve to try to suppress the advance, and several mercenaries surged to the barricades to take shots at the moth-eaten hordes below.

  Which is why they didn’t notice the pinnace lift from over the ridge behind them, and float nearly soundlessly over the vulnerable enemy ship. The other four aircav pods raced out to establish a perimeter, and Sir Alexi was able to get close enough to drop two hundred RAT troopers onto the top of the shining sphere from his cargo bay. From there it was a simple matter to repel down the sides or find a hatch open – and the lazy merchant crew had left plenty of those. There was some intense fighting as the Tanith troopers – and their local auxiliaries – swarmed over the Voltlily’s defenses. In some places the overwhelmed crew fought hand-to-hand, but the cause was lost.

  Before it was completely dark overhead, the ship was in Tanith hands.

  Later, Alexi escorted Captain Ho and two of his surviving crew back towards Rivington, the Voltlilly secure. He hated to leave such a good party – once the news of Princess Elaine’s recovery was announced, the whole barony seemed to erupt in a party – but there were duties he had to see to in town, where the battle still raged. And he was tired. And hungry.

  But he was also back on Tanith, and it felt good. With a start, he realized the feeling. He was back on the world he now called home.

  * * *

  Over the sunward face of the planet, another battle raged, as the invading Space Vikings were getting caught between the Gunloggi and the Moon Goddess, on the one side, and the Queen Flavia and the Corisande II on the other. While Harkaman certainly didn’t mind charging in, guns blazing, and destroying both ships out of hand, there were certain niceties that should be observed, even with your foes. Especially with your foes, he amended. He hailed the Dilemma, offering his ship’s identification and his screen combination by Sword World impulse code, and in a few moments his communication screen lit up. The man on the other side was sitting in a smallish, cramped-looking bridge on a decidedly older ship. He was somewhat portly, and wore a long curly unkempt beard over his shabby-looking, unbuttoned captain’s jacket.

  “Harkaman,” he grunted, with a nod. “Been a while.”

  “It has,” Otto agreed. “Nice spot you’ve gotten yourself into, Grutman.”

  “Yeah, well the brass was good,” the other captain admitted. “At the time,” he added. “Now, I’m thinking I should have asked for more.”

  “Why the devil are you working with an idiot like Spasso, Bill?” Otto asked. “You were never a lordly type, to be sure, but you were always an honest raider. Spasso isn’t fit to clean your toilets!”

  “Yeah, well, more to it than that, isn’t there?” the enemy captain said, as he manipulated his control board. “It’s not just Garvan, see. And Garvan’s not all bad, y’know. A bit rough around the edges—“

  “He kidnaps children, Bill,” Otto interrupted. “Even for Spasso, that’s low.”

  “Yeah, aye, he’s a crafty one. Wouldn’t leave him alone with my daughters.”

  “So here’s your chance to stop working for him. Face it, the battle is lost. You can’t hold out against us, four against two. And I have three more ships on the way. Spasso is a dead man. You’d do better to turn him over to me, collect the reward, and retire to some pleasure planet. As the Warlord of the Realm of Tanith, I summon you to surrender. If you do, we’ll let you go after a reasonable amount of time.” Even that was unlikely – Prince Lucas was probably not going to be well-disposed towards anyone who attacked Tanith. And the Princess was even less so.

  “Oh, Harky, you’re a bold one!” Grutman laughed, evilly. “A ‘reasonable amount of time’? I ain’t one for the institutional life, me. I’ve got obligations, you know. I took a job. Got to see it through.”

  “It had to be said, Grutman,” Harkaman sighed. “Guns-and-Missiles – load all three planetbusters!”

  “What!?” Grutman said, his face suddenly white. “Where’d you get pretties like that?”

  “Friends in high places,” Otto grunted back. “That’s one for you, one for the Hunter, and still one left over in case I miss. You know what they do to a ship, Bill. You can’t survive a hit from one of those, not and still have a ship worth flying.” Planetbusters were nuclear weapons in the 100 megaton range. Used on the surface of a planet, it was quiet possible to crack the mantle and start monstrous waves of magma tsunamis. Against a ship, even a collapsium-hulled ship, they were almost certain destruction. Compared to the usual 15 and 20 megaton nukes that were used in heavy combat, a planetbuster was a game-stopper.

  “Why, Otto?” Grutman whined. “You used to be a grand old raider yourself. Now you sold out and got a title and a fancy new ship . . . not like the old days,” he grumbled.

  “I found a man worth following,” Harkaman replied, with dignity. “And a cause worth fighting for.”

  “Bah!” dismissed the other captain. “There has to be a woman involved. Tell you what: what if I tell you Spasso ain’t aboard neither ship, he’s down below? In one of them little fingerlings,” he growled. “You can have him, too. He’s buggered up this whole operation. Was supposed to be a simple assault, let him grab power, then off for cocktails. You go after him, let me and mine go, we never come back here again.”

  Harkaman considered. “All right – on one other condition: you tell me who Spasso was working for.”

  “Wha--?”

  “He didn’t have the money to finance an attack like this on his own,” reasoned Harkaman. “You tell me who he was working with, and I’ll have my ships withdraw until you’re in hyperspace. Otherwise . . . well, there isn’t an otherwise. Not that doesn’t have you getting blown to Emceesquared.”

  “Fine, then,” the old Space Viking spat. “All I know is he was in communication with a Sword World gent, some fellow named Lord Bartee. Knew him through Xochitl, where he hired me.”

  “Xochitl? Are you in league with Viktor, then?”

  “I’m in league with the devil and my ownself, you should know that!” Grutman barked. “I’ve got no love for Viktor and even less for Spasso. But a man has debts, see? Some you can’t get out of. But Bartee was his bagman. All part of some big scheme, it was, but they didn’t let me in on the details,” he sounded a little hurt, as if he was offended that he wasn’t trusted. “But it was Bartee.”

  “Why would he want to bankroll Spasso against Tanith? It’s a fool’s errand!”

  “I’m just the muscle,” Grutman shrugged. “I thought Spasso was just offended about his hand, and wanted to make up to that new Gram king Viktor’s got in his back pocket. But I was paid well, in advance, and if Spasso’s cracked up, I’d just as soon leave with my whole ship, thank you much.”

  “A pleasure doing business with you, Grutman,” Otto nodded. “And I wouldn’t show up at Tanith again – the Trasks have long memories and access to nuclear weapons. Now if you want to cease fire and back away slowly, I’ll have my people do the same. Otherwise . . .”

  “I heard ya the first time,” the beaten Space Viking growled, as he began flipping switches on the command console. “Let me talk to the Void Hunter and we can all live to fight another day, eh?”

  “Exactly,” Harkaman said. “No reason we can’t all be reasonable about this.”

  * * *

  Nobody knew where Garvan Spasso was.

  The early capture of the Voltlilly and the reinforcements from orbit gave the Tanith forces a powerful advantage over the mercenaries fighting from dug-in trenches around the old ruins to the south of town. Within minutes of arriving, their combat contragravity had been overwhelmed by RAT combat cars and a 100 foot gunboat that the Princess Valerie disgorged from her hold over the city.

  The mercenaries had hired on for a quick battle, not a slaughter – they surrendered completely before midnight, once their haggard commander was able to find a Tanith officer to surrender to.

  Their commander hadn’t seen Garvan Spasso since the beginning of the battle.

&
nbsp; The Golden Hand had attacked the second merchant ship, known as the Nottingham, where it was landed out in the plains. The grounded merchantman had been in the process of sending reinforcements to the ruined tower in Rivington, when the air convoy was caught out in the open by the defenders. The Hand landed two 10 kiloton conventional missiles on top of it, and then took the Nottingham with frightening speed after destroying or chasing away the combat cars hovering overhead.

  Garvan Spasso was not on the Nottingham.

  He had been spotted early on in the fight, five hundred miles north of Rivington where a string of small towns hugging the northern forests had been invaded, many burned. Three survivors agreed that Spasso had come in on a pinnace and witnessed a few casual acts of brutality before praising his mercenary troops and moving on. But he was not there now. Militia and RAT troopers swept through the area repeatedly, cleaning up pockets of resistance, but his body was not among those recovered.