Treasure Of The Stars

Chapter 21

It actually took eleven hours to carry out the next stage of what the underground now called Plan Blade. They couldn't do anything about the fallen radio tower and the smashed radio building, but most of the other scars of battle were gone before dawn. The captive soldiers worked hard after two of them were shot for trying to escape.

Meanwhile the underground's space pilots and engineers were checking out one of the shuttles. This was a job that normally took several days. By cutting enough corners to make the pilots shudder, the job was done in six hours. The passenger compartment was fitted with seats and the boarding party's equipment loaded into the cargo hold along with a full shipment of legitimate cargo. At last everything was ready, down to the firing circuits for the solid-fuel boosters and the toilet paper in the zero-g bathroom aft.

Blade and Riyannah left the engineers to get on with their work. Blade ran the boarding party through a final series of exercises while Riyannah supervised the last stages of the clean-up.

A listening watch on the radio of the second shuttle detected no unusual or suspicious radio traffic. So far nobody seemed to have any idea that Station Four was in the underground's hands. That meant surprise was still with them. One of the engineers knew the appropriate codes and sent off periodic messages to make any listeners think Station Four was still alive, whole, and on the air.

This wouldn't fool the enemy forever, but it wouldn't have to. For another twelve hours after the shuttle took off, the underground fighters left behind would keep up appearances. Station Four would seem to be a busy part of Loyun Chard's space program, as far as anyone could tell from a distance. If any trucks or planes came in there might be problems, but no shipments were scheduled for another three days. That would be plenty of time.

Twelve hours after the shuttle took off, the underground would evacuate the station, taking all the prisoners with them. Half an hour after that a series of explosions would completely demolish the station and thoroughly cover all signs of the night's battle.

Then the enemy wouldn't just suspect that something was wrong at Station Four. They'd know there had been an all-out attack by the underground, successful and devastating. They'd be too sure of this to inquire further, equally sure there could be no connection between the raid and the shuttle which flew up from Station Four twelve hours earlier. All their attention would be turned to tracking down the underground raiders.

This meant the underground people who stayed behind had nearly as dangerous a job as the boarding party. Their leader didn't seem to be worried. As he said to Blade:

«We've had too much practice dodging Chard's armed clowns to worry much. Even if they catch us, they'll find they've caught a pack of bat-cats. And if they do wipe us out-well, they'll be killing all their own people we've got as prisoners along with us. Even for Loyun Chard, soldiers and engineers don't grow on bushes.»

Blade nodded. He was almost sorry he probably wouldn't be around to see the meeting between the leaders of the Targan underground and the War Council of Kanan. Meeting? He suspected that confrontation would be a better word.

Then it was time to load the shuttle. All twenty-five people in the boarding party changed into Targan Space Force coveralls and belted on Targan sidearms. Each one carried identification as a member of the staff or garrison of Station Four. The fake ID's wouldn't stand up under a real security check, so they'd still be better off if no one even knew they were aboard the starship. The coveralls and ID's were still a useful second line of defense, enough to deceive any casual observers.

Each person carried a standard Space Force flight bag, and in it a hurd-ray projector, hand grenades, and an explosive charge. They didn't have all their weapons and equipment on hand, but they had enough to do considerable damage to the starship and its crew. There was no way Loyun Chard could avoid a painful defeat now, unless the escort ships blew the shuttle and the boarding party out of the sky before they even reached Dark Warrior.

«That's unlikely,» said Riyannah. «We know that they're expecting a shuttle from Station Four some time in the next few days. So why should they suspect this shuttle's a surprise package for them?» She grinned wickedly at the thought, baring teeth like a bat-cat about to bite.

Blade smiled. Watching Riyannah develop the instincts of a fighter and a battle leader was rewarding. He wondered if the Kananites would realize that she might be a better-than-average general if they needed one. He hoped the war wouldn't last that long, but if it did-why not General Riyannah?

The chief pilot broke into his thoughts. «All right, everybody. Two minutes to go. Strap in and relax.» Shoulder and waist belts clicked into place and seats rattled back and forth as people adjusted them. Riyannah smiled. «No easy way out after this, is there?»

«No.» Blade was glad she could smile about it. The boarding party was committed now, whatever happened. No easy retreat into the mountains or the forests for them, only a battle to the death. Twenty-five men and women, bearing the future of at least three worlds and perhaps more on their shoulders. Blade reached across to Riyannah and gripped her hand for a moment.

«One minute,» said the pilot. Blade pulled his hand back and rested it loosely on the arm of his couch. He began breathing deeply to fill his system with oxygen for the high-g takeoff.

«Thirty seconds,» said the pilot. Then it was twenty, after that ten, and after that:

«Nine-eight-seven-six-five-four-three-two-one-FIRING!»

The roar of the solid-fuel boosters hammered in through the soundproofed hull of the shuttle. Smoke blotted out the sky beyond the pilot's canopy. The shuttle vibrated, lurched, and lifted. A giant got both arms around Blade's chest and squeezed hard. He forced himself to go on breathing and keep his head still, remembering that the rockets only burned for thirty seconds.

Then the altimeter needle passed twenty thousand feet.

The rockets burned out and fell back toward the forest below. The roar was replaced by a faint hum as the antigravity cut in. Normal weight returned, and through the canopy Blade saw the sky turn from blue to purple. Then it turned black and the stars came out as the shuttle soared up into space.

Dark Warrior loomed in the shuttle's canopy, a fat cylinder slightly pointed at each end and covered with an eye-searing mirror finish to reflect laser beams. Blade stood between the two pilots, watching the starship grow steadily larger. No, «large» wasn't an adequate word to describe Dark Warrior. Neither was any other adjective that came to Blade's mind. Loyun Chard's starship was so huge it was hard to believe she'd even been built by human beings.

Blade had spent days with the ship's plans. He knew she was a mile long and a thousand feet in diameter amidships. He still found it hard to see a speck perched on the hull near the stern like a fly on a cow's rump and realize the speck was a hundred-foot shuttle like the one he rode.

Can twenty-five people really hope to do anything against that monster? Blade couldn't keep the thought out of his mind for a moment. He suspected that everyone else had exactly the same feeling. Then another thought replaced the first one.

Can twenty-five people be found in that monster if they're determined to hide? That was much more encouraging and made just as much sense. Part of that mile of steel was engine rooms and weapons bays, but there would still be enough space to swallow up ten boarding parties. Finding them would be rather like finding nests of mice in a twenty-room mansion when you didn't know what a mouse looked like.

Ten miles out, one of the escort ships challenged them. The pilots gave the shuttle's base and identification number and did not stop or slow down. One of the escorts flew formation with them for several minutes, then rejoined its comrades. Not one word of protest came over the radio.

Dark Warrior now stretched halfway across the sky ahead, blotting out a steadily growing number of stars. Another mile or two and they actually could ram her before the enemy could react. Security up here wasn't just lax, it was practically nonexistent. The secret of Station Four was being well kept.

Four miles out, and the escort ship came back on the radio:

«Shuttle M 675, this is Green Patrol Leader. You are authorized to land and unload in Bay Two. Over.»

«Acknowledged, Green Leader, and thank you. Over and out.»

Three miles, two miles, one mile. There was no sky or stars left ahead, only the huge ship. The radio crackled again.

«Shuttle M 675, this is Dark Warrior Cargo Chief. We are illuminating Bay Two for you. Do you have your own cargohandlers? We're a bit short-handed right now.»

The pilot managed to keep a straight face as he replied, «M 675 to Cargo Chief. Yes, we've got our own people. Over and out.» He cut off the radio, then he and Blade and Riyannah all laughed.

Now they were covering the last mile, and the starship became a vast wall of metal, both ends out of sight. A constellation of red and green lights winked to life around one of the hundred-foot square hatches amidships. The pilot made slight adjustments to the shuttle's course, then cut off its drive. Operating it within range of the starship's internal gravity field could burn out the generators.

The shuttle drifted in toward the hatch. The pilot pushed a button and a metal ring popped out of the nose. A jointed arm with a hook on the end reached out from one edge of the batch and caught the ring. Blade gripped the back of the nearest couch as the cabin tilted around him. Slowly the shuttle was drawn down to the deck of Bay Two.

Chunnnnggg! The shuttle struck the deck and the arm lifted away. Jointed sections of deck folded themselves around the shuttle's belly, surrounding the hatches and sealing them off from the vacuum in the rest of Bay Two. Blade heard a rumble and a hissing as air was pumped into the newly-formed passageway. Then the radio came on again.

«Cargo Chief to M 675, you can start unloading at your convenience. Deposit cargo in Compartment 55GZ and leave the list on the door. One of my people will be around to pick it up later. Do you have any perishable cargo aboard?»

«None.»

«All right. Get to work.» The Cargo Chief's voice had the weary tones of a man who's worked long hours with little help and less pleasure. Blade had an image of the man sitting at a littered desk, red-eyed with fatigue, uniform rumpled, trying desperately to keep track of the cargoes pouring aboard Dark Warrior.

Blade pulled on a jacket over his coveralls and turned to the boarding party with a broad grin on his face. «All right, you people,» he said, forcing a growl into his voice. «You heard the man. Get to work!»

Laughing, the boarding party began gathering up their equipment and pulling on their own jackets. Blade turned back to the pilots and looked up through the canopy. It gave him a good view of Bay Two, a steel box large enough to hold a fair-sized office building. In all that vast cavern he could see only one human figure, a spacesuited welder busily at work on the railing of a catwalk two hundred feet above Blade.

If the rest of Dark Warrior was as nearly deserted, the job of hiding and staying hidden might be almost easy.

Only two men passed by while the boarding party was unloading. Both were middle-aged, wearing rumpled coveralls and harried expressions. They looked like clerks, cooks, or something else equally uninspiring. They passed by without more than a casual glance at the boarding party.

In half an hour the shuttle was unloaded. All the legitimate cargo was properly stowed away in 55GZ, and all the other cargo was divided up into man-sized loads. Each member of the boarding party took up one load. Then Riyannah led them off to find a quiet hiding place among Dark Warrior's maze of empty cabins.

Blade, two of the engineers, and the two shuttle pilots stayed behind. Wishun, the senior engineer, was a gray-haired, stooped man with a perpetually sour expression. He'd lost his wife to Chard's Security people, but he'd retained his own status in the space program by publicly repudiating her. He'd done it for the sake of the underground, but the pain still showed in his face. The other engineer, Draibo, was young, blond, bearded and with an almost childlike enthusiasm for spaceflight and all that might come from it. He had no enthusiasm whatever for Loyun Chard.

Both engineers were scheduled to be part of the ship's flight crew, so their presence would make no one suspicious. The shuttle pilots were to stay until after Station Four was blown up, then wait to see how the enemy reacted. They were as respectable as the engineers and shouldn't be suspected of anything.

Blade was the only odd man out. He was the leader of the whole effort, not to mention the eyes, ears, and messenger for the hidden boarding party. He had to stay in the open, even at some risk. They'd minimized the risk by giving him a more complete set of fake ID's than the others. He was nominally a Sergeant-Major Kumish Dron, newly-appointed aide and bodyguard to the engineers. Both of them were senior enough to be allowed to bring staff members along with them, so no one was likely to question Blade's presence. He only hoped the other engineers, officers, and VIP's wouldn't do the same. Too many passengers and hangers-on could crowd even Dark Warrior enough to smoke the boarding party out of hiding.

The engineers were assigned quarters, then lay down to catch up on their sleep while Blade, like a good servant, unpacked their bags. The quarters were not as luxurious as the VIP suites, which rumor said had private steam baths and wine cellars, plush carpets and perfume dispensers in the air ducts. They were more than comfortable enough for the time they'd be needed.

Reckoning the time the shuttle landed aboard Dark Warrior as M, it was now M + 3 hours. Station Four should blow skyhigh at M + 8. If nobody changed plans because of that, Dark Warrior should be on her way no later than M + 80. Somewhere around M + 150 she should be within range of the asteroid base. Then the boarding party could come out of hiding and go to work.

It was going to be a long and tense week, but Blade was too experienced to let any amount of tension affect him seriously. He hoped the boarding party would be able to manage, enduring the same strain without the same experience.

Blade's mental diary of the next three days ran something like this:

M + 4-Blade went to sleep, to be reasonably fresh when the news broke about Station Four.

M + 7-Wishun and Draibo woke him up. Station Four was gone. Apparently the underground had to blow it prematurely. However, there was no sign that anyone suspected anything more than an unusually successful underground attack.

M + 9-It was officially confirmed over the ship's public address system: Station Four has been overrun and destroyed by the bandit underground. The enemy is being pursued and no quarter will be given. Meanwhile we of Dark Warrior must redouble our efforts, to bring vengeance to the memory of our comrades and glory to Loyun Chard and Targa.

M + 10-Blade set out to find Riyannah and the rest of the boarding party.

M + 13-Blade found what he was looking for. It was encouraging that the search took so long. The chances of anyone stumbling on the boarding party by accident appeared to be rather small.

The sheer size of Dark Warrior was impressive. So was the resources and technical ingenuity put into building her. If the ship hadn't been intended for such evil purposes, it would have been a pity to destroy. Even if she was destroyed and Chard overthrown, the Targans might very well go ahead and build another. They were going to be a force to reckon with in the future of this galaxy and this Dimension, whether the Kananites liked it or not,

Riyannah explained how she'd chosen the two cabins where the boarding party was hiding. «There's only one corridor approaching us, and we have that watched every minute. If somebody does come, we'll have plenty of time to retreat through the ventilation system. The ducts will easily take a fully-equipped man, and we've got a route all mapped out.»

«Good work, General Riyannah,» said Blade, and he wasn't entirely joking in calling her «General.»

M + 14 through M + 50-Waiting, the monotony broken only by periodic reports of the pursuit of the «vile murderers of our comrades of Station Four.» The «no quarter» slogan was a gruesome piece of good luck. If the enemy wasn't going to take any prisoners, they wouldn't be able to make any of the underground talk and reveal Plan Blade.

M + 52-Dark Warrior's captain decided that the homeless shuttle M 675 and her crew would be temporarily assigned to Dark Warrior and ride along with her. There was a moment of uncertainty for Blade-was the captain going to expect anyone beside the pilots to appear? Apparently not. Having the shuttle aboard meant the survivors of the boarding party, if any, wouldn't have to steal one of the ship's own lifeboats to escape after the battle.

M + 54-Three shuttles arrived in a bunch and started unloading black-uniformed State Security troops. They moved to quarters near the VIP suites. «It looks as if our passengers are going to join us a little early,» said Wishun.

M + 60-It was announced that all crew for this mission should now be aboard and assigned quarters and duties. All hands had four hours to deal with personal matters and prepare for a formal review-full-dress uniform for armed forces personnel.

«We're not only getting our passengers early, it looks as if we're going to be on our way sooner than we expected,» said Draibo.

«Do you really mind?» asked Blade.

«Hardly,» said both engineers together. Every hour saved in getting out into space meant one less hour of waiting, one less hour with discovery and disaster possible.

M + 64-The engineers and the pilots headed for the wardroom, with Blade in his proper place behind them. By the time they got to the wardroom, it was packed with officers and their attendants. A good many of the officers were fully-armed State Security people, rather obviously keeping watch on everybody else. Blade was amused to note that the glowering State Security officers made the regular Targan officers much more nervous than they made him.

The ventilation system aboard Dark Warrior didn't have all the bugs out of it and the wardroom was packed almost wall to wall. It was already hot and stuffy and it was rapidly getting worse. Blade felt his face turning slimy with sweat and the high collar of his dress tunic sagging like a melting ice cream cone. No one else looked much more comfortable, even the State Security officers.

A whistle blew, then three trumpets sounded, ringing painfully in the closed metal compartment. Someone shouted, «Attention!» and Blade stiffened, right fist clenched on his chest in the formal Targan salute.

Then the main door of the wardroom opened and a man strode through. He was a large man, taller than Blade, and must have weighed close to three hundred pounds. Much of that weight was sheer fat, but he moved so fast and so smoothly that Blade knew there must be plenty of muscle still buried under the fat.

The man wore a pearl-gray uniform with blue trim, black leather boots, a gold mesh belt with a holstered laser pistol, and a high-peaked cap dripping with gold lace. On his chest were four rows of medals, with a pilot's wings perched in solitary splendor above them.

The face above the collar was the most arresting part of the man. Somehow the face had escaped its share of the man's fat. It was thickened, but the harsh lines of the jaw and mouth still showed clearly. The eyes were truly terrifying-large, blue, seeming to look everywhere at once without looking anywhere, the eyes of a man who saw everything and used everything he saw to his own advantage.

There was no doubt about it. This was a man where self-indulgence and cruelty were strong, but intelligence and ruthless ambition were even stronger. He would grab every bit of power Targa gave him, then reach out to the stars for more.

Blade would have guessed most of this about the man anyway, but he didn't have to guess. He'd seen too many pictures not to recognize Loyun Chard.