Princess Valerie's War

by Terry Mancour

  “But you will do as you are commanded on this ship, and you will do it to the best of your ability, regardless of your moral issues on the matter, or I will march you to the airlock at gunpoint myself. Is that perfectly clear?”

  Even as Mr. Erskyll’s eyes were still defiant, he gave a curt nod of agreement.

  “Thank you. There will be no more voting. This is not a democracy. If you want to conspire to overthrow the Atonian Planetary Nationalist Party and form a government-in-exile, be my guest. It seems that would be where your collective talents seem better suited. Plan whatever kind of elaborate democracy you want for your future home, I don’t care. But leave the present mission to me.”

  “That wouldn’t be a bad idea, actually,” one of the other political prisoners said, from the back of the crowd. “Between us, we have a better idea with what’s wrong with Aton than anyone.”

  “And with the hereditary King of Aton on your staff,” Lucas reminded them, “getting Marduk to sponsor a government-in-exile -- even unofficially -- would probably be easy.”

  “That’s true -- we’d need some sponsorship if we were to make any effective headway,” Erskyll agreed, reluctantly. “Fine, Lucas -- Captain -- we’ll let you handle the fighting. I admit, I am a bit out of my element, there. I was a lawyer, not a soldier.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Lucas sighed. “My cousin’s a lawyer. I don’t want to destroy or kill more than I have to, but if I have to, I will. That moral decision is on my head. The future of Aton, that is on yours.”

  The group retreated back to the officer’s lounge they had appropriated as a caucus room, as Lucas and Max continued towards their own lounge.

  “That was skillfully done,” Max said, admiringly. “I thought you might shoot them all on the spot.”

  “I had three good reasons for not doing it,” Lucas nodded. “First, they’re all idiots, but they’re idealistic, well-intentioned idiots. They have their role in the universe, same as I do, and they could even become useful idiots, in time. Shooting them for being idiots and questioning my authority would have been poor precedent. It’s bad command doctrine to respond that kind of issue so violently that it makes further relations with the supercargo difficult.

  “Secondly, they really do have the core of a formal resistance movement to the Atonian Planetary Nationalist Party. Most of them are solid dissidents to the regime who were removed from Atonian politics and exiled to Planet X because they were considered a threat to the Party. So having them all in one place, presenting a united front against the Party may give the Atonian people someone to rally around. Especially if they can talk King Ivan in to signing on, even as a figurehead. Then they really could get Mardukan sponsorship -- and that would discomfit my enemies.”

  “And what was your third reason?” Max prompted, as the arrived at the lift.

  “Oh. I left my pistol in my cabin,” Lucas admitted, sheepishly. “An oversight I will not repeat in the future.”

  * * *

  It turned out that they had a long time to observe Kumarbi and plan an attack, because once the ship emerged from hyperspace two hundred-thousand miles away from the planet, there was insufficient power to make microjumps to get them closer. That meant almost four days of sublight travel using only the Abbots and inertia to draw the ship towards the world. Four standard days -- but the planet that grew larger hourly in the viewscreens made six complete rotations.

  Kumarbi was mostly a desert world. The only visible body of water from orbit was a sea about thrice the size of the Mediterranean, on old Terra, or half of the size of the Shattered Sea on Tanith. Arable land seemed confined to the proximity of the lonely sea, naturally, and along the rivers which fed it.

  The vast majority of the human settlements were therefore clustered around the sea. The continent-sized region made a bright green fertile gash like a giant verdant lipstick print across the face of the world from the equator to near the pole, northeast to southwest, across the southern hemisphere of the world. Beyond that, save for dot-like oasis scattered around the globe, the world was comprised of sun baked white sands and rugged mountains.

  The largest city, according to the increasing amount of radio traffic they intercepted, was called Mishir, and it was at the western extreme of the sea. Situated on the northern side of a great bay across from the majestic cone of an extinct volcano, the city was a vast sprawl of whitewashed buildings cascading down a mountain ridge and spilling out to the limits of the land at a vast sea harbor.

  It was a lovely city, even from space. It was also the site of the planet’s only rudimentary spaceport, which occupied the upper level of the city, along with what were apparently government buildings and the palaces of local potentates. As such, it was the only place where refined plutonium stores might be kept.

  The problem, as the erstwhile Space Vikings soon realized, was that the off-world trade Mishir conducted had included at least some armament and munitions purchases: the harbor area was scattered with missile launch sites and heavy cannon emplacements, apparently built to protect the city from local pirates or trading rivals.

  But it also provided a far more effective defensive screen for Mishir than anyone had counted on. The guns were unlikely to damage the ship itself, but they would make the life of the foraging crews hell. Worse, the city had at least some contragravity; some sort of ancient combat cars were used to patrol the waterfront and the coastline of the city-state. Between the guns and the aircars, any kind of aggressive looting would be extremely difficult.

  “We just don’t have the ammunition to destroy those guns,” Delio said, fingering his chin as he stared at the combat map of the city on the viewscreen. “There are at least thirty, forty positions. Even if we scored a direct hit with each shot, we’d run out of ammunition long before we ran out of targets that could present a threat.”

  “The aircars are incidental,” Russell Grimes, the ad hoc guns-and-missiles officer of the Odyssey said, tapping the screen with a burly forefinger. “There are only half a dozen of them, and if they get within range we can take them out with anti-missile missiles or the 50mm field guns. But those coastal defenses will chew us up, once we get outside of the ship.”

  “Could we try to destroy them with a covert operation?” asked King Ivan, who felt like sitting in on the discussion. “I mean, those Sifians look like they could do that sort of thing.”

  “A few, perhaps,” Lucas agreed. “But even the best covert combat teams couldn’t neutralize that many sites before they got themselves shot to pieces. We’d run out of Sifians first.”

  “The key,” Max said, pursing his lips, “is to take them all out at once. How would you ordinarily do that, Luke?”

  “Honestly? A subcrit explosion or two to cover the whole area. Wide area of effect, relatively low damage. At least, the hardened structures, where the loot usually is, are maintained. Everyone else gets flattened. Like a large-scale earthquake. Then my men go in and loot the aftermath. People are surprisingly less inclined to put up a fight for their valuables when their homes are burning or collapsed.”

  “That would be one way to do it,” agreed Max. “But we don’t have that sophisticated weaponry. Of course, I could jerry-rig up a really big bomb of some sort. Chemical explosion. But difficult to control.”

  “It still would only take care of the guns within the blast zone. At most you could plow a path about a mile wide. That defense line is at least three, three and a half. You’d be in range of those guns the whole time,” Grimes said, shaking his head.

  “And you’d have a fully defended citadel next to the spaceport to contend with,” Ivan pointed out.

  “I’m not as worried about small arms fire,” Lucas murmured. “That citadel is one big interconnected complex. If we can land a boat there, then we can defend it long enough to load it.” He stared at the map a little longer, until his eyes got wide. “Gentlemen, I think I know how we’re going to do this. Let’s slow her down -- I want to arrive in the bay ju
st after dusk.”

  “What’s your battle plan, Sire?” Delio asked, eagerly.

  “ ‘Let the waters and stones and the very sky itself be thy sword and armor,’ " he quoted, nodding towards the screen.

  “Marshal Buckston,” Delio nodded, naming the wily old System States commander who had masterminded the defense of the System States homeworlds in the last two years of the war. His talent for tactical improvisation in the face of superior forces was legendary in the Sword Worlds. Lt. Com. Delio studied the map a little more, and finally understood. “I see. Eureka – literally. I shall make the necessary preparations, Sire.”

  The makeshift raiding crews prepared in the launching bays as the Odyssey made its final approach over the endless desert of the parched world, towards its lonely sea as it succumbed to the terminator line between day and night. It was truly dark under Kumarbi’s moonless sky when the ship rose over the summit of the extinct volcano cone opposite its brightly lit shores.

  Prince Lucas ordered the very base of the steep slope targeted with four precious anti-ship missiles. The explosions were spectacular, their light clearly visible from across the thirty five miles of water. The rock face collapsed from the force of the blast . . . sending several million tons of rock spilling into the deep side of the bay. It was spectacular to watch on the screen as hectares of solid rock and rubble spilled down the cliff face and into the water.

  The effect wasn’t immediately apparent, especially in the darkness. But in minutes the shockwave of millions of gallons of displaced water overwhelmed the coastal ramparts in a massive tidal wave. The waterfront was inundated by a wall of water forty feet high, sweeping away boats, fishing shacks, shops, and wharfs, as well as the missile and gun emplacements. The wall continued up to five hundred feet inland, destroying hundreds of poorly-built shacks in the way.

  As the water receded, the shockwave reflected off the face of the port and back across the bay. Forty minutes later, as the rescue crews filled the streets and family members wandered in the moonless night looking for help or their lost loved ones, the second, less powerful wave struck.

  The next several hours saw the citadel virtually emptied as the king or general or governor or whatever they called the local government deployed his forces. In all the chaos, virtually no one paid attention to the looming shape of the Odyssey approaching the higher ground of the citadel from the southeast. Lucas positioned the Odyssey carefully, so that it was over the central compound as the big red sun rose over the water to the east.

  The wave hadn’t destroyed every gun emplacement, of course. When it became clear to the natives that the horrible disaster had been purposefully staged, four or five of the surviving defense stations took shots at the ship, but their near-misses did little but destroy parts of the city untouched by the flooding. Civil defense had a major disaster on their hands – they had more important things to contend with than mere larceny.

  Lucas didn’t waste any time once he was in position, and insisted on leading the raiding team himself. Using the Sifian Marines to control a perimeter around the rudimentary spaceport, the former prisoners used contragravity scows to haul the keg-sized containers of ship-grade plutonium aboard. King Ivan led a second party, scouring the interior of the palace complex for portable wealth and essential supplies. Much of the food he discovered in the kitchen was foreign to him, but he commandeered a few cook-books and interrogated the palace’s chef to the point he was satisfied with the victuals he was able to get aboard.

  His party also happened across what appeared to be a strongly-built vault, whose musket-wielding guardians put up a tremendous fight before falling to a few well-aimed submachine gun bursts and a grenade. It took a Sifian corporal ten minutes and twenty-five grams of thermite to open the door, revealing a large store of gold, silver, platinum, and gemstones. There were also items impossible to identify, but which seemed precious to the Kumarbians, so Ivan ordered it looted.

  As the last of the supplies was being loaded aboard, the head of the palace guard -- having regrouped outside of the Sifian’s perimeter -- called for a truce. Lucas agreed for one unarmed man to approach his command post under guard and guaranteed his safety.

  The emissary, a darkly handsome man of middle-age, bearing a luxuriously bushy mustache, proved to be the captain of the palace guard of the Emir of Mishir -- who had been on holiday on his private yacht in the harbor. The man looked deeply troubled, but bravely faced his attackers, demanding answers.

  “Why have you done this to us?” he asked, after being searched thoroughly by Lt. Jameson and introduced to Lucas. His name was Captain Marcos Ironworker.

  “You had something we wanted,” Lucas explained. “We had nothing to trade. So we had to take it.”

  “You are no better than common pirates!” he spat. Lucas nodded.

  “We are escaped prisoners, from a nearby world. We’re desperate, because we were wrongly imprisoned and we want to go home. You can blame the Planetary Nationalist Party of Aton for all of this,” he added, gesturing to the sprawling slums below, where fire now followed flood.

  “And you merely wanted supplies? Fuel? Do you have any idea how much damage you have caused? And the Emir, and his entire family – lost! For ten generations, His Grace, the Emir’s family has ruled over Mishir and the Western sea! Now who will lead us?”

  “Lead yourselves,” Lucas shrugged. “You’ll think of something. And I am truly sorry to have had to do this to you. My people make a trade of this sort of thing. Take heart in the fact that had I come to your world in my full strength, then the damage would have been ten times worse. Tell me, how many were killed, do you think?”

  “Hundreds,” Marcos spat. “Maybe thousands. We were fortunate that you did not strike during the day. By nightfall, most of the coastal slum residents are in bed, in the upper rooms of their homes. The sleeping quarters are built above flood stage. During the day, the streets would have been filled.”

  “Then count yourself doubly fortunate,” Lucas nodded.

  “And doubly cursed!” Captain Ironworker spat, angrily. “For now we are open to attack by the Bituban rebels! The Navy was at sea, blockading Port Bituba in the Eastern sea, but once their commerce raiders know our guns are destroyed, they’ll be on us like piranha-birds on an abandoned infant!”

  “Just what does this Bituba province produce? How do they store their wealth?” Both were important questions.

  Marcos looked disgusted. “They are the descendants of savages from the utter wastes of the desert who invaded our homelands centuries ago. We subdued them, but two generations ago the eastern provinces rebelled. Bituba is the strongest of them, and our chief foe. They build their palaces on the back of their great stores of gold and their endless caravans of slaves – slaves who farm so cheaply our honest landsmen cannot compete! But gold . . . their savage kin trade it to them like coal, not knowing its value -- and then they use it to hire mercenaries and auxiliaries from around the Great Sea, and deny our rightful rule!” He seemed utterly scandalized by the whole situation.

  “Gold, you say?”

  “Aye! They have a mountain of it, it is said, inside that accursed black temple of theirs!”

  “Temple?” Lucas asked, even more interested. There was almost always some good loot in a temple. “What kind of temple?”

  “Satanic, my lord,” the man said, gravely. “They worship He Who Is Not Named.”

  “And they’re led by a bishop of some kind?”

  “Overlord Lito, may Al curse his name forever!”

  “Al?”

  “The one true God, my lord. Surely you’ve heard of him.”

  “Hasn’t everyone?” Lucas shrugged. “Very well . . . how about I try to make up for my crime here a bit by helping you destroy your enemies and re-conquer the evil . . . Lito, Overlord Lito? And his minions in Port Bituba.”

  “And just what do you propose, my lord?” he asked, suspiciously, his eyes narrowing.

  “You said your
navy was blockading them -- I’m guessing that they can’t get past their defenses any better than we could yours?”

  “Without employing that . . . unique strategy of yours, my lord? No, we’re not able to breach their coastal guns. And they dare not meet us on the open sea -- our navy is more than a match for theirs,” he boasted, proudly.

  “So why don’t you attack them from the landward side?” Lucas asked, curiously.

  “It is well-guarded by their half-cultured kin, and their client states guard the only passes that could be used for such a maneuver. It would take weeks, and entail a large caravan by ground through rugged, waterless terrain to get any significant force at their flanks. We have sent a few airships into their rear, and have a few loyal agents there, but . . . “ he shrugged, dismissively.