Princess Valerie's War

by Terry Mancour

  But that didn’t keep her right hand from blindly stabbing with her dress dagger, over and over again, wherever she could find an opening on the smaller woman’s body. One of her strikes apparently hit home, however, because she felt the intense strength of the assassin suddenly start to fade. Valerie used the advantage instantly, shifting her weight and pushing against the stall with her leg. The leverage was enough to send the assassin sprawling, her left hand now clasped to her abdomen where there were several rapidly-expanding blood pools on her pristine white medical uniform.

  The assassin looked down at the blood – a whole lot of blood, she could see – and back up at the princess, her eyes wide with fear and surprise.

  “Didn’t think I’d be much of a challenge, did you?” the princess gasped, as she flipped the dress dagger around to a more aggressive position.

  “You got lucky,” the other woman gasped.

  “I do that,” Valerie said. “Who sent you?”

  “Go to Nifflheim!”

  “That was your last chance to cooperate, Dead Woman,” Valerie said. Suddenly the anger she felt in the pit of her stomach surged up and took over her whole being. Calling for her guards didn’t even occur to her. Everything from the last year and a half that had conspired to take away her happy life flashed before her – the grenade-throwing assassin at Harkaman House, the hidden bomb that had been planted to kill her and her child in the birthing room in her own home, the attacks on Tanith, the abduction of her daughter, the capture and imprisonment of her husband, all welled up her spine in one mighty pillar of rage. Suddenly she wasn’t fighting for her life – she felt like an avenging angel facing a minor inconvenience.

  She delivered a kick to the assassin’s wrist that sent the knife sailing against the wall and clattering across the floor. Then she punched the woman full in the face, knocking her head against the back of the door. And then she hit her again. And again. And again. Only when the assassin was clearly unconscious did she pause . . . and then she hit her bloodied face one last time before she allowed her to slump to the floor.

  It took a little effort to push past her and get into the corridor, where she terrified a young orderly who was delivering fresh linens to one of the clinics.

  “Get help,” Valerie ordered her, hoarsely. “My guards, outside, quick!”

  There was an explosion of activity immediately afterwards as the attack became known. Valerie found herself slumped in a chair, the bloody dagger still in her hand, her white gown covered in a horrific amount of blood. But apart from the three-inch long laceration on her chin, she was unscathed. Golden Hand guards and Royal Army troopers and the local Gorramton police swarmed the building in moments.

  “Heal her,” she ordered Countess Dorothy, as the assassin was taken out of the lavatory on a litter, surrounded by Royal Army soldiers. “I want her alive and awake for interrogation.”

  “Highness?” Dorothy asked, doubtfully, her face pale.

  “I want her alive,” Valerie insisted, as a medical technician tended her chin. “I need to know who sent her. So patch her up, check her for any suicide devices, and then the Golden Hand are going to take a mind probe to her.”

  “Highness! A mind probe?” Dorothy asked, aghast. The devices could compel a subject to spill every deep dark secret in his or her soul to an interrogator. The down side was the cost: if used inexpertly there was a possibility that the subject could end up a mindless vegetable. Even in expert hands, the probability of catastrophic cognitive loss was dangerously high. Use of the machines was officially prescribed in most civilized worlds. Including Marduk.

  “Don’t give me any guff about how ‘inhumane’ it is,” Valerie replied. “Mardukan Naval Intelligence has been using them for centuries. Every other assassination attempt so far has been the predicate of an armed assault. I need to know who she works for and what their plan is, before we get a sky full of ships to contend with. She’s already earned herself a death sentence for assaulting me – if she’s a vegetable when she’s propped up before a firing squad, that won’t bother me one bit. Is that clear, Countess?”

  “Yes, my Princess,” Countess Dorothy said, grimly, nodding her head deferentially. “Get her to the operating room in Clinic Three right now, hook her up to the robodoc and start her on Ringers and plasma,” she ordered the attending medic. “I want at least three security guards in the room, and another squad on hand outside in case she wakes up. As soon as her vitals have stabilized, I’ll start.”

  As the assassin was being carried away, Dorothy dismissed the medtech who was tending Valerie’s chin and knelt to examine the wound.

  “It’s clean,” she pronounced. “Just barely got you. I should even be able to keep it from showing a visible scar. Are you otherwise hurt?”

  Valerie considered the pain in her head from the stall door, the bruise across her kidneys from the side of the sink, and the pain in her wrist and knees, but there wasn’t anything serious. She shook her head.

  “Are you okay, sweetie?” Dorothy asked, quietly. “I can give you a tranquilizer, if you like.”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Valerie insisted. “Just . . . really irate right now. I just got attacked. In a bathroom. The one place my guards wouldn’t follow me.”

  “She must have been waiting weeks or months for the opportunity,” Dorothy observed, as she rose. “I’ll have her background checked out—”

  Just then, Princess Myrna pushed her way past the phalanx of guards that cluttered the hallway, shrieking at the sight of Valerie’s bloody gown.

  “OHmygod, VALERIE!” she wailed, eyes wide as saucers. “Are you okay? They said . . . they said you were attacked!”

  “Assassin. I took care of it,” Valerie mumbled. “I’m fine. Just a scratch and a couple of bruises.”

  “They tried to whisk me back to Trask House, but I demanded I see you first,” she said, hurriedly. “Oh, God, there’s a lot of blood – none of it’s yours? You’re sure?”

  “It’s mostly hers,” Valerie conceded. “I just got a scratch. I’m fine, really, honey.” The last thing she needed was a hysterical teen on her hands, in the middle of a crisis. “Do me a favor, Myr, send someone to find the Golden Hand officer in charge and send him to me, okay?” she asked. There were Golden Hand troopers at all entrances, now, and at least three within sight, but she wanted the man in charge of the investigation, not a mere guard.

  “I’m on it!” the girl said, resolutely, and rushed off. Valerie flicked her eyes at a couple of guards, and they dutifully followed the foreign princess. No need to tempt fate with another assassination attempt. One a day was quite sufficient.

  Valerie was cleaning her dress dagger with a piece of surgical gauze when the man arrived, a few minutes later. Lt. Holden Barnes appeared, his cloak thrown back to reveal his black combat armor, his submachine gun near to hand.

  “Highness, my apologies, we failed you—” he began, his face ashen.

  “Don’t worry about it, Lieutenant,” she dismissed. “We discovered a hole in our security, is all. We’ll fix it. I’m fine. What I want for you to do now is to contact the War Department and have the fleet put on high alert. Last time someone tried to kill me, they followed it up with an attack. I can’t help but be suspicious this time.”

  “Highness, I was just on screen with the Warlord,” he explained. “He was trying to contact you. It seems as if we’ve detected some unscheduled hyperspace emergences in distant planetary orbit, between the sixth and seventh planets. Not where we’ve directed incoming traffic. He’s already informed the Prime Minister.”

  Valerie stopped working and looked at him sharply. “Is it . . . is it Lucas?” she asked, in a whisper.

  “No, Highness, I’m afraid it isn’t. Or unlikely to be. Six emergences. They haven’t tried to communicate, but we’ve detected plenty of inter-ship communication between them – Sword World impulse code.”

  “Viktor of Xochitl?”

  “No, my princess, that’s not wha
t the Warlord believes. Or at least not all. They haven’t positively identified any of them, but long-range observations suggest they bear signature design elements consistent with ships built on Gram.”

  “Gram?” she said, almost yelping. “Omfray’s coming at us again?” she asked, a note of dismay in her voice. “Very well, Lieutenant,” she said, finishing mopping the last drops from her blade. “Prepare my aircar. Notify Trask House that we’ll be coming in shortly. I want Princess Elaine and her entourage packed. Have the shelters in the Alta Fresca’s prepared for her arrival. Notify the Home Minister to mobilize his troops and alert the militia. Air raid sirens. All anti-aircraft and ground-to-air batteries on alert. And notify Sir Paul over at TanithNews to enact the Emergency Telecast Plan, number four. Have him send a camera crew to Trask House, and inform them of their arrival. Then detail a couple of Golden Hand to guard the prisoner, and when Countess Dorothy pronounces her well enough to proceed, I want you to drag her back to that secret cave of yours, hook her up to a mind probe, and wring her out like a dish towel. I want to know who she works for, how she got here, and if she has any confederates at large. Is that clear, Mr. Barnes?” To emphasize her point, she returned her argentium-plated dagger to its scabbard with a decisive click.

  “Yes, Highness!” the man said, snapping to attention and saluting.

  “I’ll be ready to leave here in five minutes. And Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, Highness?”

  “Could I possibly borrow your side-arm? I suddenly feel strangely naked, and I think I’d find it comforting.”

  Without another word, the trooper instantly took off his gun belt, taking only his radio out of the pocket, shortened it significantly to fit around Valerie’s waist, and then gingerly buckled it around his sovereign. Valerie drew the heavy military 10mm pistol, checked the load and the magazine, and returned it to its holster. She sighed and dismissed the man with a nod.

  “So does that gun make you feel more secure?” Countess Dorothy asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “Strangely enough, yes,” Valerie admitted.

  “It does look a little intimidating,” Dorothy conceded, nodding to the wide, ruggedly-constructed black belt and menacing holster. “Especially with the blood-soaked dress. And the fresh wound on your chin.”

  “Good,” Valerie said, her eyes narrowing. “That will probably translate well when I address the people back on camera in a few hours. I don’t even think I’ll change – maybe if people see the blood, they’ll take the attack seriously.” Outside, loud enough to be heard through the thick walls of the clinic, an air-raid klaxon began sounding. “Honestly, Dorothy? I’ve had about all I can stand of this nonsense. I’ve been in a fairly good humor about it, all things considered. But now . . . now I’m started to get mad.”

  Chapter Twenty:

  The Sacking Of Kumarbi

  “What in heaven’s name are you doing to that poor robot?” Lucas asked, when he entered the cavernous machine shop near the Engineering section of the Odyssey that Max had claimed as his own private domain. On a metal workbench in the middle of the room was a highly-disassembled robot -- or perhaps more than one -- that the tinker was fussing with.

  “Oh, him? This is Igor,” he explained, as he put down his soldering iron. “Igor started life as one of the mechanical robots for the auxiliary reactors, only we don’t need those reactors because we’ve got most of the ship shut down. So I’m re-dedicating him. He’s going to be my new assistant.”

  “You call it ‘him’?” Lucas asked, confused.

  “Family tradition,” Max grinned, wiping the flux from his hands with a stained rag as he tossed his hair out of his eyes. “My dad always did it, at least. Come to think of it, so did my grand-dad. But I’ve always had an Igor. Built my first one when I was twelve. To help hold a pocket torch, carry my tools, run simple errands, and do repetitive tasks. Actually, I talk to Igor when I’m working -- I’ve even been talking to this thing, and he’s not even activated yet.

  “This one, this is Igor Mark Nine. He’s going to be special, too. You Sword Worlders have a knack for robotic design. None of that pesky gotta-look-like-a-man crap -- just pure functionality,” he said, admiringly. “Heck, most designs in the civilized worlds are basically just variations of massed-produced Old Federation technology. This fellow, though, he’s got some novel touches. Great power consumption, contragrav lift, and since he started out as a nuke robot, he’s got one heck of a sensor suite. Full remote capabilities, too. Need to add better manipulators, higher capacity processors, voice activation, recognition, and response . . . plus my personal bells and whistles. Once I’m done customizing him, he’ll be the best Igor yet -- which is saying a lot. I had a lot invested in Igor 8,” he said, wistfully.

  “What happened to it? Him?” Lucas corrected.

  “Took a bullet for me on Sif,” admitted Max. “Those Atonian dragoons were pretty trigger-happy when they captured us. If it hadn’t been for Igor, I’d have been left with the rest of the bodies.”

  “Let’s hope this one serves you as well as number eight,” Lucas said, diplomatically. He knew some technicians got awfully anthropomorphic about the machinery they worked on. He didn’t mind humoring the man -- Max was the only reason they’d escaped from Planet X in the first place, and the only hope to keep the Odyssey flying. “So, exactly how long until we come out at Kumarbi?”

  “Well,” sighed the tinker, tossing down the rag, “if everything holds together and my calculations are correct, we should be there in . . . another eighteen hours?”

  “Great Ghu!” swore Lucas. “Men haven’t traveled the stars this slowly since the second century!”

  “Hey, the amazing thing about a dancing Sheshan isn’t how gracefully it dances, but that it dances at all. Seriously, those guys don’t dance. Completely foreign to their culture. But we do travel through hyperspace, albeit slowly. Luckily, you Sword World chaps use a double-ring Dillingham drive, which means it’s harder to go in and out of hyperspace, but once you’re there, it takes less power to keep you there. So we should be able to make it to Kumarbi with about ten hours of power to spare. But that’s it: we don’t get more plutonium on Kumarbi, then that’s our new home.”

  “We’ll get the plutonium,” assured Lucas. “Taking things away from people is my stock in trade, remember?”

  “Keeping the ship flying is mine,” agreed Max. “So try not to get her banged to pieces, all right? She takes more than a few bumps, and whole systems could go off-line at a very inconvenient moment. The Odyssey is fragile, right now. At least until Uller. If we can get to Uller, we can all find rides home, I think. Well, most of us,” he added. There were a lot of Atonian prisoners who couldn’t go home again -- ever. Unless they wanted to face a firing squad.

  “You get us to Uller, I’ll get everyone home. Or at least safe. If it is safe, back on Tanith,” he added, doubtfully.

  “You did kind of get on the Atonian’s bad side,” agreed the tinker, pouring a glass of some of the pleasantly potent spirits they’d “liberated” in the sacking of Ludmilla into a crystal glass and handing it to Lucas before pouring another. “I mean, even the Sifians didn’t get as much propaganda time on the telecasts as you, Luke! Or the Holy Abbot of Nuit! And he’s . . . well, holy!”

  “Tanith has greater strategic importance, and more political context,” soothed Lucas, sipping the liquor slowly. “They’re using my world as a foil to justify their own internal policies. And using me to appear to shape their foreign policies. I resent that.”

  “Classic propaganda,” nodded Max.

  “The problem is, unlike the Sifians or the Bubastians or the Nuitians, my planet isn’t a sub-civilized dependency that Aton is trying to rule by proxy. We’re an independent -- fiercely independent -- colony of professional killers and robbers. My people . . . well, they’re likely to do something . . . rash.”

  “Like steal an essential piece of evidence that Aton wants hidden and riding it off of their prison moo
n with most of their worst enemies?” Max pointed out. “And then raiding a peaceful colony for plunder? Or is that more ‘bold’ than ‘rash’?”

  “It was desperate. And serendipitous. I want to see my wife and daughter so badly, I would have found another way, if I had to.”

  “Well, someone in charge is smiling on you, then,” Max pointed out. “One fully-functional – okay, barely functional – spaceship and crew, ready to order. Now you can get home and figure out how you can win a war against Aton.”

  “If I have a ‘back home’ left,” Lucas sighed. “I’m worried, Max. My wife, that’s kind of a problem. And my people. My senior staff are all seasoned Space Vikings -- well, most of them, at any rate. I can only imagine how they’re reacting to my capture right now.”