Princess Valerie's War

by Terry Mancour

  There were half a dozen more questions related to housekeeping issues – where will we sleep? What time is lunch? – but Lucas was able to dispense with the majority of them in short order. He covered a list of ship’s rules, mostly common-sense stuff, and discussed each rule beyond the point of misunderstanding. He introduced everyone to his command staff, and instructed them on the necessity of obedience. He also showed them on a viewscreen map what sections of the ship were off-limits, and which were freely available to them. Then he left Lt. Jameson to help organize the group while he went up to the bridge.

  To his surprise, not only was Commander Delio seated comfortably in the command chair, Max was flopped down in another console, his leg hanging over one arm of the chair nonchalantly, and the pilot and signals-and-detection officer were still manning their consoles.

  “Good morning, Sire,” Delio said as he rose to vacate the seat. “I trust your address to the rabble went well?”

  “Well enough,” grunted Lucas as he took the seat. “There’s going to be a couple of troublemakers, of course. But I think I made myself understood. And I even had a couple of volunteers – that old freetrader captain, for one.”

  “Cap’n O’Roarke?” Max asked surprised. “You should feel honored. His people don’t consider what just about anyone else does to be really spacefaring.”

  “I would assume that if one is faring in space,” Lucas said, rolling his eyes, “then that would qualify as—”

  “I don’t think you understand, Luke,” Max said, lazily. “The O’Roarkes are one of the Traveler Families.”

  “The who?” Lucas asked, curious. He’d never heard of such.

  “They aren’t real active on the Sword World end of things, I guess,” Max admitted, “but they are kind of famous at this end. The Travelers are a culture that dates from the earliest days of the Federation – just after the second Federation was formed, four ships bearing nine families launched from Terra. Lot of that going around back then, I guess. But these nine families didn’t want to colonize – they wanted to trade. In a generation there were fifteen families, thanks to intermarriage, and there were seven ships. And so on. A couple of centuries later, there are tens of thousands of them.”

  “Family business, then?” Lucas proposed.

  “More like a cult – like the Gilgameshers, I guess, without the funny clothes and bad haircuts. The Travelers have been plying remote trade routes since the very beginning. They’ll form a company if it helps with the local paperwork, but truthfully they’re a law unto themselves. Smart planets don’t mess with them.”

  “Aton messed with them,” Delio pointed out.

  “Smart planets don’t mess with them,” Max repeated, sourly. “Look, in the heart of the Old Federation, around the Great Powers, there’s plenty of commercial shipping firms keeping things running – wouldn’t want the gentry on Isis to not get their Baldur Honey-Rum, now, would you? The margins are high, the routes are safe, and the risks are low.

  “The Travelers, on the other hand, they hug the twilight. On this side of the galaxy, at least, they keep what little trade there is between worlds going. In some places they’ve actually helped rekindle some civilization, or at least brought vital resources to long-lost settlements. They know more about the frontier worlds and what lies beyond than anyone. They have about fifty or so little ships, rarely over a thousand feet, and they’ve been known to be on the dark side of the law a time or two, but they’re very good people. They have strict customs about hospitality and obligation. And they see things that most people don’t notice. Even a few of the major intelligence agencies rely on Travelers, the way that they rely on Gilgameshers in some places.”

  “So why did this family get nabbed by the Atonians?” Lucas asked.

  “Wrong place, wrong time,” Max shrugged. “Much the same story as myself. They were bringing merchandise to people who wanted it and could pay for it, merchandise that just so happened to be on some obscure list of prohibited trade items from the Atonian Commerce Department. They lost their ship, too, which for a Traveler is like losing your mother.”

  “They sound like they might be useful,” nodded Lucas.

  “Oh, hell yes!” Max agreed enthusiastically. “They know languages and dialects and codes, they know who buys what and when, they know how to fly a ship and they know their way around a spaceport like your tongue knows the back of your teeth. But they don’t bow and scrape to anyone, they’d rather run than fight, and rather trade than run. And Ghu help you if you touch their daughters,” he added, emphatically. It sounded to Lucas as if the Tinker had some personal experience with that. Perhaps he could get him to talk about it sometime over drinks. It sounded interesting, from a cultural perspective – and damn entertaining, too, most likely.

  “Well, see if any of them could make decent assistant engineers or deck officers,” grunted Lucas. “I’m sure you and Sebastian need the help. And if they prove helpful, when we get back to Tanith I’ll give them a ship. If I have any left,” he added, ruefully. If Tanith was still there, he thought, anxiously.

  “Of course, Sire,” Delio nodded. “Max, what about any of the other . . . supercargo? Anyone know anything useful?”

  “I’ll check into it,” the engineer said lazily. “Probably once we get into hyperspace, where I can relax. Wow, I can’t believe how much I’m enjoying flying again! Four months as an earthworm was long enough!”

  “You enjoy canned air, bottled water, and no way out that much, Max?” asked Delio, amused.

  “Beats soggy air, oily water and a long, lingering retirement trading junk,” agreed Max. “I’m not an ambitious man, but I’m sure my mum had higher hopes for me than that. Besides, that’s they way I’ve lived all my life.” He yawned, broadly and suddenly, and the weariness became more apparent on his face. “Look, wake me up when we get to Ludmilla, okay? And make sure the raiding parties take my list of supplies. She’ll stay in the air, at this point, and if she doesn’t there’s bugger-all I could do about it. Max is going to take a long, long nap,” he sighed, contently sinking into the chair. He was asleep.

  “Let him lie,” Lucas said, quietly. “He’s earned it. He’s performed a miracle.”

  “At least the prologue of one,” agreed Delio. “Let’s see if we actually make it to Kumarbi, then I’ll start believing in miracles, Sire.”

  Chapter Fourteen:

  War And Roses

  It was spring in Rivington, and the air was filled with pollen and the scent of war. She could smell it on the wind.

  Valerie walked through the gardens of Trask House after lunch, appreciating the strange and interesting flowers – everything from lusciously red Terran Roses to bright yellow Hornbuds from Gram to an odd cluster of white lily-like blossoms native to Tanith that were breathtakingly beautiful. It was as if the whole planet was alive and singing with newfound hope.

  It seemed such a bitter contrast to Valerie’s heart that she could almost not bear the irony. She felt like taking a pair of clippers to the whole garden, leaving the taunting hope of the beautiful flowers littering the stone walkways like the heads of fallen foes. She wouldn’t, of course – the staff worked tirelessly to transform the palace into a place of serene beauty, occasionally brushing stateliness, and she was loathe to do anything to molest their good work. And in truth, Valerie’s spring saw her far more hopeful than her winter had been.

  She had her daughter back, praise whatever divinity was in charge of such things. Tanith was intact, if a bit battered. The plans of her enemies were in tatters, their schemes against the Realm having failed. Her people were solidly behind her, even though she was a relative newcomer among them.

  Yet none of it seemed worthwhile without Lucas by her side.

  And it wasn’t just for issues of statecraft that she pined for him. Little Elaine was growing so quickly, and Lucas was missing it. Already the giggly little baby had learned to crawl, and could pull herself upright, and was as proud of herself for the acc
omplishment as if she’d invented the wheel. She was a terribly funny, bright little baby, perpetually cheerful and blessed with near-perfect health. Every day was a new adventure in getting to know the new person, experiencing the simplest joys of life through her eyes. It was a special, magical time.

  And Lucas was missing it.

  As much as she loved her daughter, she could not shake the feelings of anxiety and hopelessness she felt, knowing that Lucas was locked away in some godforsaken hole while she stood here, enjoying the sunshine and the flowers and the warm breeze from the South. What horrors did he have to endure at the hands of the Atonians? What torments? What were those bastards doing to her husband?

  The Atonians weren’t saying much on the subject, according to the Mardukan Naval Intelligence office which dispatched reports to Tanith as a courtesy and information exchange. Valerie read every report, scanning in vain for signs of Lucas. And Marduk had an extensive penetration of the Atonian party apparatus – idealistic totalitarianism and corruption going hand-in-hand, thankfully.

  But the workings of the Party’s secret internal police, whom had apparently taken charge of Lucas and the other Tanith men, remained beyond even Marduk’s scrutiny. The Atonian Bureau of Internal Security was a virtual government-within-a-government, from what Marduk could tell her about it. They had their own secret police force, a huge number of spies, both foreign and domestic, trained assassins, death squads, secret prisons, and even their own private naval force and secret bases. Protected by the haze of a vast and inefficient bureaucracy, the BIS was the inner core of Aton’s foreign policy and clandestine affairs.

  And they were apparently impregnable to infiltration – the Mardukans had been trying for years. Every time an agent got close, Aton had discovered the treachery and had begun seeding the infiltrators with false information, until they were useless assets. At most, some modest gossip from known informants and the occasional lucky microphone had been able to provide at least a hint of the workings of the BIS, and Marduk had expended every resource to try to find out what had happened to her husband behind the wall of BIS shadows. There wasn’t much: Lucas had been tried in a secret court in a secret location by secret judges, and was now in some secret prison. There wasn’t even any guarantee that he was on Aton.

  But once the news of Tanith’s declaration of war had reached the civilized worlds via Marduk, things had begun to change. For one thing Prince Regent Simon of Marduk had sent a personal audiovisual message to President Luiz of Aton demanding Lucas’ release on a number of grounds. The Atonians had politely declined. That was as far as Marduk was willing to go for Tanith, for now, but it had caused the break-down of some sensitive trade negotiations between the two small empires, and the cancellation of a diplomatic conference.

  None of the other civilized worlds had joined Marduk in pressing for Lucas’ release, of course – it was considered a minor matter, a squabble between a Great Power and an upstart regional warlord, unworthy of their official attention – although they watched it unfold with interest. Such squabbles between the Great Powers and their vassals, allies, and dependencies happened all the time.

  Aton refused to dignify Tanith’s declaration with a response, merely re-stating that Trask was a criminal and had been prosecuted as such. Valerie’s impassioned declaration, recorded by TanithNews and exported by audiovisual tape, had gotten modest approval on Marduk, where the Trasks enjoyed a certain celebrity. It had also scandalized the more conservative strata of Mardukan society, who saw her dramatic gesture as proof of how Space Viking culture could ruin a nice, well-brought-up civilized girl. But while the conservative aristocracy might have been scandalized, they genuinely loathed the anti-aristocratic and decidedly authoritarian Atonians, so the effect hadn’t been totally impotent.

  There were limits to which Marduk would go for Tanith. Valerie understood that – she wasn’t asking Prince Regent Simon to fight her wars for her.

  She had a fleet for that. And that’s what they were doing.

  After the Winter Ball Declaration – widely reported as the most elegantly dressed declaration of war in history – the Royal Fleet had gone into action. While leaving half of the ships at home to shore up a strong defense, Valerie directed the rest to raid exclusively Atonian-allied trade worlds, as many as could be reached in a short time. The Atonian fleet was not to be engaged directly unless unavoidable – the goal was to stir up trouble in the Atonian hinterlands, and encourage them to disperse their fleet.

  The first results were already coming back in – Duke Otto had raided Jotun exhaustively, pressing the Atonian-allied government of the barely-industrial world to cough up as much portable wealth as possible under pain of destruction. He went on to raid two other worlds that were friendly with Aton, traded shots with a thousand-foot Atonian Navy patrol ship, and came back for more ammunition.

  Boake Valkanhayn had gone out with the Space Scourge and the Queen Flavia, raiding four Atonian-allied trade worlds in rapid succession. The final one had been trouble: just as they were leaving Nuit, two thousand-foot cruisers and a three-thousand foot destroyer of the Atonian Navy came out of hyperspace hot on their trail. The ships fought a furious ship-to-ship action that had, unfortunately, claimed the Queen Flavia in a nuclear ball of fire. Valkanhayn had retreated in good order after that, but not before destroying one of the cruisers and critically wounding the other.

  Then there was the Golden Hand and the Moon Goddess. Valerie had dispatched the ships, complete with five-hundred ground fighters and a full arsenal of nuclear weapons each, on a mission under the command of Sir Alexi Karvall. They were to go deep behind enemy lines and cause as much mischief for the Atonians as possible from unexpected quarters. Alvyn Karffard had outfitted a full espionage section for the trip, the details of which she wasn’t privy to. As long as they hurt the Atonians. She hadn’t given them more explicit instructions – the Golden Hand were becoming adept at creatively improvising, and she felt that any further direction might hamper their ability to construct mayhem. She trusted their judgment on that.

  But she had given them an over-riding order: they were to do everything in their power to locate Lucas Trask, and, if possible, rescue him from the Atonians. That was precisely the type of mission the Golden Hand was built to do, and the corps, now numbering over a hundred and fifty with this most recent class, was fanatically devoted to doing just that.

  The privateer program had gotten off to a bold start – six Space Vikings had asked for letters of Marque and Reprise almost immediately, including friends of the Realm like Roger fan-Morvill Estersan and Captain Phillipe, but after that the interested parties had trickled to one or two a month. Space Vikings didn’t need permission to engage in piracy, generally, and raiding was a far more lucrative prospect, usually, but there were also several captains who had found Tanith to be as close to a home port as they had and they didn’t mind helping out the Realm.

  All of the Space Viking colonies attracted that kind of trade, eventually, Alvyn Karffard had explained to her one night: Viktor had his own coterie of independents who saw Xochitl as a second home, as did the Everrards on Hoth and the others. Tanith’s “pet” independent Space Vikings liked the world enough – or hated Viktor enough – to support the Realm even if they were not bound to it by oath or contract. And the program had already brought victories: two thousand-foot Atonian merchant craft had been brought in as prizes since the first letters had been granted. They were now being stripped and refurbished at the spaceport for inclusion in the Tanith Merchant Marine Fleet.

  Valerie looked southeast, toward the spaceport and beyond it to the shipyards, where the prizes seemed to cower in the shadow of the three-thousand foot bulk of the former Royal Navy of Gram ship, Titanothere. It was nearing completion as the newest (and largest) Royal Navy of Tanith commissioned ship, and would be known as the Adventure. She had yet to pick a commander for the ship, but that was pressing. Valerie wanted the brand-new battleship out amongst the stars, smas
hing Atonians as quickly as possible.

  Her sister-ship, the former King Omfray, was still in orbit, slated to in for repairs and re-commissioning herself as soon as there was room at the yards. She would be eventually re-christened the Defender Of The Realm. She’d taken a beating from Tanith, but she was still sound and spaceworthy. Once she was fitted with the new Dragons, she would become the backbone of Tanith’s orbital defense, augmenting the Lamia’s capabilities dramatically.

  Beyond the Adventure was the two-thousand foot sphere of the Nemesis, receiving some final repairs from its brutal duel with Atonians and the Gram fleet over Amateratsu. When she was finished she would be put in parallel orbit with the Lamia and serve as a defensive ship. Valerie wouldn’t let anyone but Lucas take her out on a real raid. That was Lucas’ ship.

  Then there were the other captured Gram ships, still docked at the moonbase, empty and awaiting new crews. They were undamaged, fully-armed, and ready to be commissioned, but the ugly fact was that they just didn’t have the people to put at the controls. Beowulf and Amateratsu were both beginning official space training programs for their people, and had sent scores of eager recruits who sought adventure and regular pay in the service of Tanith, but it took time and resources to train that many green crews from scratch. It would be another six months before the smaller ships would be ready.