Princess Valerie's War

by Terry Mancour

  “So when I found out about this place from one of the other merchants, I convinced them to move here. They have a smart little camp now, you should see it in daylight. I try to keep them supplied from camp, and they scavenge a little, and provide the occasional bit of muscle in town if I need it. They know how to brew, too,” Max added, as he helped himself to a large clear bottle of indeterminate origin. He took a long pull and handed it to Lucas. It was a little odd -- almost oily -- but the brew had real alcohol in it. The first he’d had in a while.

  “So how many of these Sifian Marine tribes are there?” he asked, when he recovered.

  “Five or six divisions. About eight, ten thousand. They live on the most marginal land on Sif, and will until they get an order to stand down from a headquarters that ceased to exist five hundred years ago. But they’re good people. You won’t find more honest neobarbs.”

  Lucas started to wonder aloud how they’d like a more substantial home on Tanith -- there were whole continents with almost no human inhabitants, not to mention several deserted archipelagos -- when they were interrupted by Lt. Delio, who was wiping his hands on a rag and smiling.

  “Pardon me, Sire, but there’s something you should see,” he said, as Lucas handed him the bottle. To his credit, Delio didn’t react to the taste, although the face that he did make seemed damnedly familiar.

  “Did you run into the same null code response I did?” Max asked, amused. “I’ve tried for weeks now--”

  “No, actually, I got in quite easily,” Delio replied. Max nearly fell over.

  “What in Satan’s name?” Max exclaimed. “I’ve tried the most sophisticated algorithms and cryptological programming I--”

  “It wouldn’t have done you any good,” Delio replied, a thin smile on his face. “The code mechanism used on this ship is standard Sword World Impulse code military spec, which means that it and its systems were derived from System States Alliance craft. What did you do when it prompted you for the date?”

  “I, uh, put in the date,” Max said, confused.

  “And did you put it in according to the Terran Standard system?”

  “Well, why wouldn’t I? Or does it want it anno domini?” the technician asked, scornfully.

  “Official Sword World military systems use a different dating system. Instead of beginning the year at 0, with Enrico Fermi launching the first nuclear plant on Terra, it uses a different starting reference point. The date of Founder’s Day of the System States Alliance. It’s a state holiday in most of the Sword Worlds, but that’s not something you would know. And if you don’t put in the correct date, then the rest of the security protocol will just cycle you through a lot of nonsense.” If Lucas wasn’t positive his stalwart young officer was too much of a gentleman to do so, he might have detected a trace of gloating in his tone.

  “Son of a bitch,” Max swore, shaking his head. “I’ve been running loops all this time?”

  “Don’t feel bad. It was designed specifically to out-smart Federation personnel. But there wasn’t any further encryption beyond the basics, so whoever sealed it likely planned on returning.”

  “That is interesting,” Lucas murmured.

  “Sire, that was not the important thing to which I wanted to alert you. Just inside the hatch, I found this,” he said, handing a small object to Lucas. He took it and turned it to better see in the dim light.

  It was a spacesuit oxygen bottle tag, the kind that was standard for inventory and maintenance. It was faded, yellowed, and the ink was almost illegible. But he could make out the date. More importantly, he could make out the great color seal of the industrial barony that made the bottle, was the sigil of the ship it belonged to: a red phoenix in profile, surrounded by yellow flame, the arms of the ruling house of Haulteclere. Within the breast of the phoenix was a sword impaling a black stylized crown.

  PROPERTY RNH IRON CROWN, the tag read under the seal.

  “Oh, my,” Lucas said, his eyes wide.

  * * *

  The interior of the ship was pitch black, of course, and the air was stale. Max provided several pocket torches from his many pockets, and the neobarbarian captain came with a few of his men, spears and crossbows at the ready. It didn’t take Max long to find a proper emergency torch near the airlock, its atomic power cell still active after more than a hundred years.

  “She’s beautiful,” Max breathed as they walked through the ornately-decorated airlock deployment room, splashing lights on everything. There were stylized phoenixes and elaborate gold-plated vines decorating the control consoles, much different from the more utilitarian style of modern ships. The decorations were showing their age, the gilt cracked and the paint faded, but there was no denying the opulent majesty of the ship’s interior. Even the access panels were ornately styled.

  “Are all Space Viking ships like this?” Max asked, in awe. “I’ve been on a lot of boats, but never one this fancy!”

  “My Nemesis is a lot more Spartan,” Lucas agreed. “Was,” he corrected, sadly.

  “The Iron Crown was built during the late Haultecleran Baroque period,” explained Lt. Delio, as he caressed the graceful curve of a phoenix’s neck, entwined around a door. “There was a certain sense of lavishness in the detail, in ships of the period. In addition, this was the royal flagship of His Highness, Prince Havilgar, and the Haulteclerans have always been known for their sense of excess. Back then being a ‘Space Viking’ was a novelty profession for well-to-do aristocracy, high adventure for the elite, not merely a heavily-armed procurement scheme. His Highness would have no less than a flying pleasure palace, girded for war. But you’re right,” he added, approvingly. “She is a lovely ship.”

  They continued crawling through the empty corridors, unable to explore large parts of the ship whose access was through powered doors. The first item on Max’s agenda, therefore, became how to turn the electricity on. He left Lucas and the others exploring the lower decks while he searched for almost two hours. When he finally found them again, trying to manually unseal an armory door, the engineer was elated.

  “First, the good news,” he explained, excitedly as he removed a flask from his coat. “I found a mass-energy converter, one of the main auxiliary ones, but I can re-route it to supply main power. Limited, of course - we won’t fly away on that. But enough to give us lights, maybe ventilation.”

  “We’ve made a find ourselves,” Lucas said, proudly. “Most of the ship’s armament is intact, we think, at least the launchers and guns seem to be in place. Most of the combat contragravity is gone, but there are still a few pieces left. A couple of combat cars and a half-dozen air cavalry mounts. A few lorries. Maybe more. No telling if any of it still works--”

  “If it ever worked once, I can make it work again,” Max assured him, as he took a sip from his flask. “Any contragrav lifters lying about?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “We need to start bringing up some mass to feed that converter, so we can get some lights on and see what we’re working with. I suggest we use mud. It’s messy, it’s not particularly efficient, but we have a gracious plenty. And if I can get the Marines to haul up about half a ton of it, I can have power to the ship by morning.”

  While Captain Carundun was perplexed about why Max needed mud, and in such abundant quantities, he also trusted the eccentric little man enough to humor him. Before long his men were loading the heaps of sticky sludge that surrounded the ship into coffin-sized contragrav lifters and winding their way through the bowels of the abandoned ship.

  As the half-naked Marines worked at Max’s direction, Lucas continued to explore the combat staging area of the ship. This was where the large combat airships had been berthed, a hundred feet long and bearing double 50mm auto cannons or missile launchers. Six-man combat cars bristling with machineguns and missiles. Recon craft, perimeter patrol vehicles, armored lorries for bringing ammunition forward and for hauling loot back to the ship. The big bays were picked clean, mostly deserted of their former ca
rgo, but the bare remnants that remained, on Planet X, were invaluable.

  The combat car, in particular, he was pleased to find. Not only did it seem fully intact -- hopefully sparing him another hell-ride through the mudflats of Planet X in Max’s homemade jalopy -- it also had a small armory within that hadn’t been stripped with the rest of the ship. Inside were two submachine guns, ten carbines, ammunition, and a locker full of pistols and combat grenades.

  “I admit, I felt naked until just now,” Lucas sighed as he strapped on a pistol belt. The leather was faded and cracked, but it held. He drew the gun and checked the chamber and the magazine. “I bet there are more of these around, too.”

  “Careful, Sire,” Lt. Delio murmured, as he strapped on a gun belt of his own, drew and checked the magazine before returning the gun to its holster. “It’s possible these kind folk won’t want to share their booty.”

  “We got them in,” reasoned Lucas, “and they’ll need our help getting her out. If that’s even possible.”

  “Even if she never flies again, she’s already given us some treasures,” remarked the young officer, patting his new pistol. “And if young Max can get power running to her, again, then I’ll be ecstatic. A hot shower . . .” he mused. The mud from the nearly constant rain got everywhere, and the tepid public showers in the camp were inadequate, at best.

  “There’s no telling what else we’ll find,” agreed Lucas. “But I think the biggest question remains . . . why is she here in the first place?”

  “If you mean ‘here’ as in ‘on Planet X’, she hasn’t been here long,” Lt. Delio suggested. “There’s not enough wild growth around her, for one thing. Saplings, yes, but no older growth. She was moved here within the last decade, I’d guess, and likely under her own power. Which I find encouraging -- if she got here, then she can probably leave here. If you mean, ‘why is a ship whose destruction is a historical fact -- and not a minor one, at that -- yet exist, and more, in such good condition’ then, Sire, I confess I haven’t a clue.”

  “Perhaps we’ll find out,” hoped the Prince, as he continued searching the car for treasures – and finding one almost immediately. “Ah! Hundred year-old cigarettes! Care to join me?”

  Delio looked skeptically at the sealed pack Lucas had pulled out of the combat car’s pilot’s chair. When Lucas didn’t hesitate to open the pack and light one, the young Lieutenant did likewise.

  “I couldn’t very well allow my Prince to chance such dangers alone,” he reasoned aloud. Both coughed harshly, but after a second drag they got used to the ancient tobacco. It had been weeks since they’d had any tobacco, or liquor, or real coffee, or any other comforts commonly enjoyed by a spaceman. As bad as the ancient, crumbling weed they smoked was, it was still a luxury.

  “But back to the mysterious Iron Crown. At the very least, this suggests that Crown Prince Havilgar did not, in fact, have his ship destroyed on Aton when he made that raid a hundred and thirty years ago.”

  It was commonly known Sword World history that Prince Havilgar of Haulteclere had made a grand raid against the civilized world with a magnificent fleet of six warships. Only two had survived the attack. One of them had been commanded by Havilgar’s cousin, Morgan of Rolandale, who had gone back to his homeworld and dutifully reported to the distraught king that his only son and heir to the throne had perished with his ship in a fireball of atomics in the desert wastes of far Aton. The kind died of grief and old-age soon after – though it was widely suspected that he had some help in that regard. Then Morgan had taken advantage of the succession crisis by putting his son on the throne and then fighting bitterly to keep him there. The present king of Haulteclere, Konrad, was a direct ancestor of Morgan.

  “Historically, it would have been in character for Morgan to have lied about it,” Lt. Delio agreed. “As ruthless ambition goes, Morgan had enough to keep his son on the throne through a bloody civil war.”

  “But this ship doesn’t look like it’s been destroyed -- or even damaged more than a little light combat. From all accounts the Battle of Aton was fierce, sixteen days of fighting across nine continents. And I can’t imagine Prince Havilgar going outside for a stroll in the middle of it and locking himself out of his ship. Or Morgan forgetting a little matter like the survival of his liege.”

  “Which suggests that he was not, in fact, killed on Aton,” concluded Lt. Delio. “More, it begins to smell of treachery.”

  Lucas nodded. “Reek, you mean. It wouldn’t be the first time a distant claimant to the throne used a battlefield accident to get ahead in line -- or even make a push for big chair himself, if he’s crazy enough to want it. And Aton is over four thousand light-years from Haulteclere. Hard to send someone out to check the facts.”

  “And if Morgan’s men were all loyal to him, or didn’t know the specifics of Havilgar’s fate, then it would be difficult to suggest anything else but the official report happened. And without a suggestion of impropriety, there would be no reason to veridicate any of them.”

  “I wonder if anyone tried?” Lucas mused, allowing the acrid smoke to trickle out of his nostrils.

  “Alas, we have exhausted my knowledge of the succession crisis in Haulteclere, Sire,” Lt. Delia admitted. “But I think a prolonged study of the event might prove valuable in light of this new information. Perhaps we can find some historical precedent for comparison. Say, King John’s take-over of the throne of England from Richard the Lion Hearted, during the Crusades.”

  That was the sort of comment that Lucas missed from Otto Harkaman, he realized. Indeed, he felt a little bereft of his advisors, now that he was on his own. Karffard’s wily insights, Morland’s strong and stoic demeanor, Nick’s candid observations, Valkanhayn’s abrupt pronouncements, even Valpry’s somewhat obsequious advice. But he missed Harkaman’s insights most of all.

  Not nearly as much as he missed Valerie, he knew – but he had a new appreciation for just how much he depended on good advice from competent people. He certainly could use it now, especially with the dizzying fact of a three-thousand foot battleship that wasn’t supposed to exist being mired at the arse-end of the galaxy.

  “But what I can’t understand is what role it’s playing in current events?” Lucas sighed, as he reclined in the pilot’s chair. “This antique seems to be the root of the connection between Aton and Haulteclere. Aton tried to hide the ship on Planet X. The Wizard felt it was important enough to smuggle a photoprint of it to me -- how ironic that I’m depending on that same ship to rescue me now. And clearly it hints at something sinister in Haultecleran history. But it’s just that, history. If Morgan left Havilgar stranded on Aton for some reason, who here-and-now is going to damn him for it? It would be just as effective to damn King John, this many centuries after the fact.”

  “There are still too many questions we don’t have answers to, Sire,” agreed Lt. Delio, “But I’m hopeful we’ll find a few on this ship. Assuming we can resurrect her from this junkyard,” he said, skeptically. As if to answer him, the lights in the bay outside of the combat car came on.

  “I’m feeling better and better about that, myself, Lieutenant,” Lucas said, stubbing out his cigarette in the pilot’s ashtray as he rose. “Let’s go see what the Tinker has been able to determine about our chances of going home. And let’s see if we can find a more comfortable spot to do that in.”

  * * *

  “The verdict is in. We can get her to fly again,” Max explained to everyone, six hours later.

  They had gathered in the Officers’ Mess, an ornate and dusty dining room complete with a grand, highly polished wooden bar at once end. While the power on the robobartender had long bled away, Max was able to at least open the cover and retrieve the contents. Now the Tanith men and the Sifian Marines were all enjoying almost two-hundred year old Haultecleran bourbon, which almost made up for the lamentable state of the tobacco.

  “But it isn’t going to be easy,” Max continued, when the cheering died down. “The good news is that the
Dillingham hyperdrives are intact and operable, and so are the Abbot lift-and-drive engines. Which means that if we can get the ship pressurized, stocked, and many of the subsidiary systems operational, we can take her out of here. That’s the good news.