Princess Valerie's War

by Terry Mancour

  “So they didn’t move her off of Ludmilla, they just put her in the sky long enough to make it to scenic Planet X,” nodded Lucas. “If you lived ‘on Ludmilla’, you saw her take off into the sky and assumed that she went into orbit. Then they put her down here in this mudflat, and . . . she’s gone. Only now she’s coming back. If this rock isn’t more than four thousand miles across, then getting back to the other side shouldn’t be any big deal, should it?”

  “Take us about five hours in atmosphere, at top speeds,” nodded Max.

  “So, how long would it take a relief force to get from the Ludmilla side to the Planet X side?”

  “About the same – a little more time, probably, since they’ll have to organize it. And stop off at orbit to grab the ammunition,” Max added, rolling his eyes. “Not that they’ll find it there, probably.”

  It was Lucas’ turn to look confused. “Why?”

  “Because we’re going to steal it, first,” explained Max, tossing back the last dregs of his drink. “One of the overlooked items in the hold? The captain’s gig. A four-man lighter that will take us to orbit, without having to lift the whole ship. Still has enough juice for three, four trips. The way I see it, one of you hot-shot Space Vikings can go up, snag all the Atonian ammunition, and be back down here before we attack. Then when we do go in . . . their cupboard is bear. Ours is full. They’ll have to call in reinforcements from Ludmilla.”

  “And we’ll be on our way to Ludmilla – now unguarded – as the security forces from there are still trying to restore order in the camp,” Lucas nodded, excitedly. “I like the way you think, Max!”

  “My mother always said, if you’re going to be a garbage man, try to be the best garbage man in the galaxy,” Max quoted. “So I guess I’m going to be a temporary Space Viking. Might as well try to be the best one in the galaxy.”

  “Gentlemen,” Lucas nodded, appreciatively, “it looks like we’re going to have a jailbreak!

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Escape From Planet X!

  The next few weeks flew by as the crew worked with new purpose. Having a spaceship that could theoretically get them off of the prison planet was one thing – knowing that they had a route back to civilization drove the crew in their duties as they steadily brought one system after another back from the dead.

  First the Abbots, primed by power from the auxiliary mass energy converters, came online, providing enough lift to bring the pads of the landing legs above the surface of the mudflats and keep them there. That disrupted the Sifian camp between them, but most of the Marines had already transferred their meager possessions to the ground crew quarters aboard the Iron Crown.

  The nightly trips to camp continued, with the help of King Ivan, who had wholeheartedly thrown his support behind the escape plan. He assisted in gathering supplies through the auspices of his restaurant, sending several bags and parcels back to the ship every evening. Most of it was locally grown, potatoes and leeks and tubers and such, but he was able to secure a few hundred pounds of real wheat flour, thanks to a guard with a gambling problem and access to the camp quartermaster. He also sent four crates of live chickens, laying hens and a rooster.

  “I hope everyone likes pancakes,” he said, as he personally escorted the precious flour into the hold. “Because with what I’ve got in stock, now, that’s going to be a staple of the menu. Luckily, those yellow berries are in season, and they’ll freeze well.”

  “We’ll pick up more supplies when we raid Ludmilla, proper,” promised Lucas. “In the meantime, have you given thought about which other expatriates would be helpful to bring along?”

  “Yeah, actually. I got a list of about forty or fifty. Starting with half a dozen Buddhist monks; the Abbot of Renpo encouraged a rebellion on Nuit, and the Party had he and his council snatched and stashed here on Planet X. There’s the leadership of the rival Atonian Christian Democratic Party – they’re a bunch of nuts, if you ask me, and they espouse some pretty radical combinations of politics and religion, but they’re very popular in some rural parts of Aton.

  “There are three or four reliable spies who’ve been caught – decent guys, actually. They have a weekly card game I sit in on every now and then. And they’d be loaded with good intelligence on Aton. There’s the Radical Populist Party, about a dozen folks with more anger than sense, but they’re popular with the young folks, so I hear. And finally there’s a bunch of college professors and teachers who didn’t pass the political examinations, and whose views were found so anti-Party as to require ‘reeducation’. Oh, a family of freetraders who got nabbed for smuggling something embarrassing – really good people, them. And a couple of solid criminals, career organized crime figures who crossed someone in the Party and ended up here.”

  “That’s quite a mix,” nodded Lucas. “If you can feed them, and you think they’ll obey my commands, I wouldn’t mind extending them the invitation. Do this,” he suggested. “Don’t tell them what’s happening – I don’t want to break security. But give them a clue that something might happen soon, and they should have a bag packed. And that Aton security should probably not find out about it.”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard,” the chef grunted. “They’ll just figure it’s another uprising. Happens every decade or so. And most of ‘em trust me all right. Especially the crooks.”

  Other preparations were made, as well. Lt. Delio broke out the Captain’s Gig, once it’s launching hatch was clear of the mud flats, and after a few days of repair and reconditioning, he and Lt. Jameson took it into orbit long enough to establish the existence of the other side of Planet X – a big green continent that dwarfed their tiny island, with a few glowing lights indicating cities. While in orbit they collected the unmanned cargo pod loaded with the Atonians' ammunition. Most of it was standard 10 mm pistol rounds, plus some 8mm rifle rounds that didn’t fit any of the Sword World carbines, chambered for 7mm. Still, it had trade value – and the pistol ammunition filled submachine guns, as well.

  A week later, Lt. Jameson took one of the ancient air-jeeps across the ocean in a harrowing 1500 mile journey, until he was able to come ashore on Ludmilla’s main continent in darkness. After hiding the jeep and stealing some clothes and cash from an unsuspecting resident, Jameson proceeded to spend a week scouting the three largest cities on the continent for security information, supply depots, and potential sources of good looting.

  The local government, he reported, was a sleepy institution that parroted the Party line but largely left the citizenry to go about its business with a minimum of interference. The spaceport, such as it was, was unsuitable for any serious repair work, but the stacks of huge plutonium cartridges designed to run Dillingham hyperdrives was in evidence – that would give the Iron Crown a lot more range. And the Central Aquaculture Byproduct Repository, the secure facility where Ludmilla’s unique cone-shaped crysto-luminescent pearls were stored, was well-guarded but lightly secured.

  Most importantly, the feeble military base on the main continent was definitely junior varsity grade: less than a brigade, with only a single air-tank and a squadron of combat cars. Most of the troops were militia more used to flood and crowd control than combat. If the camp commandant of Planet X called for help, he wouldn’t get much. Jameson loaded up on delicacies while he was spying – particularly cigarettes and food – and made the return trip without incident.

  Lucas, for his part, tried to keep the repairs ongoing and the supplies organized, as well as figuring out how to deploy his limited manpower to fill all the vacant but essential jobs a three-thousand foot space ship requires to operate.

  The table of organization had himself at the top as Captain, Max as Engineer, Lt. Delio as Executive officer, and then filled in the bridge jobs with the generally inexperienced crew of the Nemesis. That still left several jobs open, he noted, but the inclusion of the Atonian royal family helped: he assigned some of them duties as stewards and storekeepers, as well as listing King Ivan as ship’s cook, but there w
ere still plenty of blank spaces on his list. Medical officer. Quartermaster. Various administrative jobs that kept day-to-day life humming along while you were hyperspace. Lucas did as much as he could until he realized that he just didn’t have any more qualified people. He’d have to wait until the rest of the passengers boarded to determine where they might work out best.

  There was one detail he oversaw personally.

  He wasn’t content flying the Iron Crown under Prince Havilgar’s blazon, a simple iron crown transfixed by a sword. Lucas had two of his men find some paint in the stores and create a large, ghastly-white skull under the crown. It was enough like his own blazon on the Nemesis to identify him, and it was different enough from Havilgar’s livery to distinguish the ship and keep it from being recognized. Lt. Delio wasn’t satisfied with the name, either.

  “She isn’t exactly the old Iron Crown anymore,” he pointed out. “Unless you want to appear to be the Ghost Of Prince Havilgar, come back from the grave to avenge his murder.”

  “That’s a very interesting idea,” Lucas nodded, thoughtfully. “Maybe we will use that, at some point. But you’re right. She’s not the same ship who came here. She needs a new name. I wouldn’t feel right calling her the Nemesis II, though.”

  “ ‘HMS Bounty’, perhaps?” Delio suggested, amused.

  “We didn’t mutiny,” Lucas reminded, “we restored her from a junk heap.”

  “Well, it will take a very long time to get back home, Your Highness,” sighed the young officer. “Indeed it suggests another ancient sailor who was far from home and wife, and undertook a long journey to get back. Odysseus.”

  “That’s got a good ring to it,” Lucas agreed. “Let’s call her the Odyssey. And hope it doesn’t take me ten years to get home.”

  At last the fateful day came when all the many checklists were filled, the storage lockers were packed, the chargeable cells were charged, and every other thing they could think of was ready for the Odyssey to launch. That was when Lucas began planning the raid that would both cover and supply their exit from Planet X.

  Leaving the prison world without demonstrating their feelings for the Atonian Planetary Nationalist Party was just impolite, Lucas declared. He convened his staff, such as it was, and presented his battle plan.

  “I think appearing over the camp in the middle of the night is probably our best bet, for obvious reasons,” he explained. “For one thing, it will scare the devil out of the commandant – how could a ship suddenly appear when the detection equipment didn’t register any emergences from hyperspace? And who expects a Space Viking raid this far from the Sword Worlds?

  “Then there’s the prospect of getting blown up – always helps clarify the thinking. So if we appear, make some demands, blow open the headquarters building—”

  “And destroy those awful audiovisual propaganda screens,” Lt. Delio added, quietly.

  “—then we should be able to load up any additional supplies and passengers we need before we go. And I plan to leave things a big mess – I know we don’t have a lot of spare weapons, but what we can spare I’d like to turn over to the prisoners. That should be enough to get the commandant screaming for help from the rest of Ludmilla.”

  “Which we take advantage of,” Max agreed, “by moving across the ocean to the main continent while the security forces move towards the camp around the moon from the other direction. Then we descend on Ludmilla, proper.”

  “And give them a taste of a real Space Viking raid,” nodded Lucas. “Minimum damage, maximum looting potential. We’ll hit three cities – the space port complex first, of course, so that we can take on plutonium and spare parts and other supplies, and then we move up the coast to hit the pearl depositories, first, and then the military base. By the time the word reaches Planet X that Ludmilla is under attack and they head back, I want to be in orbit.”

  “And on to scenic Kumarbi and points west,” Max said, with satisfaction.

  Lucas ordered two days of rest and celebration, once Max proclaimed the Dillinghams were ready. The last of the potent homemade liquor was drunk, and the last few personal items were stowed. A message went out to King Ivan to prepare his list and get his family ready for his dramatic departure.

  It was time to leave Planet X.

  * * *

  Lt. Delio sat in the command chair of the Odyssey, a mile in the air, overlooking the fetid swamp that had been his home for four months, now. As he looked out over the stunted jungle, the scattered wildlife, and the incessant rains, he realized that he had not the slightest bit of attachment to the place. Planet X -- Ludmilla -- could safely rot out here at the edge of colonized space for the rest of eternity without the young officer thinking about it ever again, and that didn’t trouble the young man at all. The sooner they left, the better.

  And today was the day they would leave. The sun was just now sinking down beyond the overcast horizon, and the gloom was starting to spread. As soon as darkness had fallen, then the assault teams would get into position. Prince Lucas was leading them himself, with Royal Navy men running the contragravity, the Sifian marines acting as eager triggermen. As soon as Lucas gave the signal, then the Odyssey would move into place over the headquarters building at the camp. Then the real fun would begin.

  The bridge seemed sparse, where it wasn’t cluttered. Only the signals-and-detection officer, the guns-and-missiles officer, and the normal space pilot, and an engineer were at their positions, although the weapons station was a nightmare of jerry-rigged circuitry and improvised controls. Luckily -- or unluckily, depending upon how one chose to look at it, there really weren’t very many guns or missiles to control. Indeed, for this mission the fire controls were wired to a single 90mm ship’s gun at the equator, filled with five precious shells -- a third of the total armament.

  They had also set up a 50mm heavy infantry support gun on one of the open decks, if they needed crowd control, and a rack of anti-missile missiles converted for ground use, if they needed to blow something up. But the focus of his mission wasn’t destruction: the Odyssey was here primarily to provide sufficient intimidation.

  “Mark the signal, Commander,” Ensign Roupe reported solemnly. “His Highness says he’s in position and ready to move on your mark.” Delio was still unused to the title -- but Prince Lucas had insisted that his exec be field-promoted to Commander, under the circumstances, to keep there from being any issue with his orders.

  Delio was gratified by the promotion, but didn’t see it as necessary. But then again Prince Lucas was, he had observed, incredibly loyal to his subordinates and rewarded them lavishly when they performed as expected. For the umteenth time Delio was thankful he had refrained from acknowledging his true parentage or name -- the last thing he wanted to do was influence His Highness’ opinion of him.

  He had been worried about Lucas, ever since they’d arrived on ‘Planet X’. He had seen how heavily their predicament weighed on the sovereign, and how much the Prince blamed himself for their unlawful imprisonment. Despite how much he desperately missed his wife and child -- and propriety prohibited him from ever revealing the times in which he had caught his Prince with tears in his eyes – Lucas had maintained strict control around his subordinates as he had overseen the repairs. Always in good spirits and jovial in public, Delio was one of the few who had seen Lucas wandering the corridors of the great empty ship in the middle of the night, restlessly pacing with a furrowed brow.

  “Acknowledge,” Delio ordered. “Pilot: move us into position over the headquarters building, please. Half speed.”

  “Arriving at the HQ building in four minutes, Commander,” the pilot reported dutifully as he activated the controls. The gloomy jungle outside began to move as the ship shifted positions. There was the slightest surge against the decks as she lumbered forward. Delio relaxed, realizing that he had felt tensed and anxious for weeks, now. It had taken getting a ship’s steel under his feet to make him feel right.

  “Guns-and-missiles,” he sa
id, solemnly, “target the main communication tower of the camp. Fire the moment you have a clear shot. And do be frugal with ammunition, Mr. Seely!” he reminded.

  “Aye, Sir!” young Ensign Seely said, eagerly. He had practiced at the patchwork controls for hours, after Max had given him a meticulous lesson in how they now worked. Just like the rest of the mostly inexperienced former crew of the Nemesis, Seely had just enough knowledge to know what he was doing, but not much in the way of experience. In this case it served them well – a more experienced officer might have difficulty making the transition from a standard weapons control board to the . . . Delio thought that the panel had began life as an industrial washing machine control panel.

  That reminded him – better see how things were going belowdecks. He picked up the phone and punched in a direct line to the Engine Room.