Treasure Of The Stars

Chapter 22

Dark Warrior and her escorts were several hours out into space on the way to the asteroid before Blade could get back to the boarding party and tell them the news.

The Targans couldn't dance, sing, or cheer. There wasn't room to dance and singing or cheering might be overheard. In any case the expressions on their faces told Blade clearly enough what the new situation meant to them.

Having Loyun Chard himself aboard Dark Warrior opened the dazzling possibility of not just destroying the man's prize ship but of killing him outright. Like most tyrants he'd carefully avoided picking an heir, for fear the man might become ambitious to take over too soon. In fact he'd used the traditional tactics of playing off his various key supporters against one another. If Chard died aboard Dark Warrior, his supporters would immediately split into several suspicious and hostile factions. Each would control part of the armed forces, but none would have a decisive edge.

That of course would mean civil war on Targa, but for once the underground people didn't seem to care. Blade's major problem was persuading them not to storm the VIP quarters and try to kill Chard at once. That took another hour of desperate low-voiced argument. If Riyannah hadn't supported him, Blade might not have been able to win the argument.

«Blade and I want Chard's head as badly as you do,» she said irritably. «Stop accusing us of being weak! It's just that we want to make sure we get it, not throw away our best chance by acting too soon.

«Consider. Right now we're only a few hours from Targa and there isn't a friendly warship within twenty million miles. The Security black-boys will have all their attention on guarding the leader and they outnumber us three to one.

«If we attack now, Chard can climb into one of the lifeboats and be safe aboard an escort ship long before we reach him. We'd lose our chance of getting him and maybe even our chance of crippling Dark Warrior. Then she certainly would be used for wiping out the underground's bases!

«If we stick to the original plan, we'll have a much better chance of getting both Chard and the ship. The Security men will be distracted by the fighting against the patrols. You've said yourself that they're more policemen and executioners than real soldiers or spacemen. We know Chard will be moving around, showing himself to his men as he always does. We may be able to ambush him. Even if he does get off Dark Warrior, there will be Kananite and Menel ships all around us. They may pick him off if we can't.»

The argument wavered back and forth for a while longer, but eventually the Targans agreed that Blade and Riyannah were right. Plan Blade would go forward on schedule.

Outside in the corridor, Blade whispered to Riyannah, «Actually I think the engineers, the pilots, and I are the people with the best hopes of getting the bastard. We've got the freedom to move around and the chance to learn his movements. We'll also have the best chance to strike by surprise.»

«Five of you against Chard and all his guards?»

«Three, actually. The pilots ought to stay out of the fighting as much as possible and be ready to take us off.»

«Three people.» Riyannah sighed. «Do you think you have any chance?»

«Of killing Chard, yes. Of getting out afterward-«He shrugged. «I don't know. And I don't like it any better than you do. But we've got to get Chard.»

«You think I don't know that?» said Riyannah almost angrily. «I just wish- Oh, I wish a lot of things that aren't possible.» She kissed him. «Good luck and don't get killed if you don't have to.»

Blade returned to his quarters and sat down with Wishun and Draibo to lay plans. Dark Warrior moved steadily out into space.

Sixty hours out from Targa, the announcement came.

«All hands-general call to Battle Stations in five hours.»

Blade caught a quick meal in the nearest NCO's mess. The two pilots slipped away to join the boarding party. The two engineers stayed in their cabin, too tense to eat. They weren't veterans at this sort of thing, and Blade himself found he had to get the food down a mouthful at a time. He'd never before faced a battle where he had so great a chance of doing something important or so small a chance of coming out in one piece.

He still went through his preparations with his usual grim professional care. He'd modified a uniform jacket with hidden pouches. Now he dropped four of the small blue grenades into one pouch. Into another he dropped a canister of Targan riot-control gas. It produced violent sneezing, severe nausea, and temporary blindness.

In the last pouch he put a small hurd-ray pistol with an oversized power cell. He planned to use it on the maximum overload setting. This would use up even a Kananite power cell in a couple of minutes, but it would also produce a lethal beam. Loyun Chard and anyone else who got in its way would be not only dead but disintegrated into smoking chunks.

Then Blade hung his well-armed jacket on the foot of his bed, lay down, and went to sleep.

Someone was shaking him. Blade woke up and swung his feet to the floor before he recognized who it was. Wishun was standing by the bed.

«They've just called Battle Stations,» he said. «Time we were moving.» His face was very pale, but his hands were steady as he pulled on his own jacket.

«Any reports of attacking ships?» Blade asked.

«None so far. Do you think-the enemy-have changed their plans?» They called the defenders of the asteroid base «the enemy» to confuse any possible eavesdroppers.

«They had no way of getting word to us, but I doubt it,» said Blade. «They haven't got many choices.» He stood up. «Let's go.»

The plan was simple enough, and even gave them a small chance of getting clear afterward. Its timing, though, was at the mercy of Chard's movements. They had to strike while he was in or near the Battle Command Center, watching the opening stages of the attack on the asteroid. That meant they might not be able to synchronize their attack with the boarding party's. It was a risk, but one Blade was willing to run for a chance to kill Chard.

The corridor to the elevator they were using was nearly empty. Even with nearly four hundred men aboard and most of them on the move, Dark Warrior seemed half-deserted. Blade mentally crossed his fingers, hoping the boarding party could hide for another hour. If they could, there was no way Loyun Chard could escape a stinging defeat.

Damn it, he didn't just want Chard defeated now! He wanted the man dead! Blade pulled his face into an impassive mask and followed the two engineers into the elevator.

The elevator let them out on the Command Deck. There was a guard post at the entrance to the circular corridor around the Battle Command Center. Blade and the engineers were offering their ID's to the Security man on duty when a gong began sounding urgently.

«Attention, all hands. Two squadrons of enemy ships are approaching. The escorts are preparing to engage, but they will be within range of us before long. Vengeance for our comrades of Station Four! Glory to our Leader Chard!»

All Blade's senses we're now as alert as a hunting animal's. The approach of ships from the asteroid base would certainly get the boarding party moving if it was still in hiding. The alarm might be up within minutes and then Loyun Chard would be on the move also, perhaps moving out of their reach. He and the engineers might have to take the first opportunity they had to strike.

Blade took his ID back from the guard and followed the engineers into the corridor beyond the guard post. It formed a circle a hundred and fifty feet in diameter. Opening off the inner side were six large rooms holding computers and other supporting equipment. In the very center of the circle was the Battle Command Center, fifty feet across and two decks high. Wishun's battle station was in Computer Room One, which also had the main entrance to the BCC. If Chard had to leave in a hurry, he would most likely be coming right past Wishun and Blade.

Draibo turned off into Fire Control Two, his station. He was supposed to stay there for ten minutes or until he heard firing. If he didn't hear any firing, he was to come over to Computer One and start a brawl with Wishun. From there on things would develop rapidly, and they all hoped successfully.

Computer One reminded Blade somewhat of the main computer room in the Project's underground complex. Even the finish on the computer consoles was gray and faintly crackled. Nothing was really missing except the sullen gray rock of the walls and Lord Leighton bustling about in his filthy old laboratory coat.

There was nothing to do for an engineer's aide when the ship was at Battle Stations except run errands, and there were no errands to run. Blade pulled a folding seat out of the wall and sat down, trying to look both military and inconspicuous at the same time. He didn't need to try very hard. Everyone in the room was too busy to pay any attention to him.

They were all hunched over their consoles, sweaty faces turned to the rainbow displays of lights, hands dancing over knobs, switches, and keyboards. A screen over one console showed a pit of black space with a distant powdering of stars and a few larger specks darting and wheeling. Twice explosions flared among the specks, but Blade couldn't tell if anyone was getting hit. Dark Warrior's own lasers and missiles didn't seem to be in action yet. The loudspeakers were pouring out a continuous stream of announcements about enemy ships being engaged and vengeance for the dead of Station Four. There would be vengeance before long, but not for any of Loyun Chard's men.

Blade flexed his shoulders to loosen cramped muscles and felt the reassuring weight of the weapons concealed inside his jacket. He unzipped the jacket' a few more inches so he could reach inside for a quick draw with the hurd-ray.

Faint and far off, something went whummmp. Blade heard it through the air, felt the vibration through the deck, and stiffened. Several men raised their heads from consoles to look around uncertainly. Another fainter whummmp came. Blade's eyes met Wishun's. He forced himself to keep his hands resting in his lap.

Blade's watch showed nine minutes since he'd sat down. In another minute Draibo should appear and-

The loudspeaker gave off a high-pitched whistle. Everyone in the room stiffened along with Blade and the Security guards reached for their pistols. «Attention, attention, all hands!» came the urgent voice. «Emergency! Armed agents of the traitors are aboard. Stand by your posts, do your duty, and defend our Leader with your lives!»

Then the door to the corridor opened and Draibo strode through, mouth open, eyes wide and staring at Wishun, hands dangling at his side but twisted into claws. Blade rose, a guard turned toward the young engineer, and then the door to the Battle Command Center slid open and Loyun Chard stepped through.

There was a solid mass of black uniforms behind the leader but only two Security men beside him. Blade knew he'd never have a better chance. With one hand he drew the hurd-ray and with the other plucked out a grenade. One of the men flanking Chard saw Blade move but did the wrong thing in response. Instead of drawing and firing, he gallantly threw himself in front of his leader, opening his mouth to shout a warning. He died with his mouth open as Blade's hurd-ray tore the whole upper part of his body into smoking pieces.

The remains of the body thudded to the deck, giving Blade a clear shot at Loyun Chard. The leader was reeling backward, face blackened, eyes shut, uniform smouldering, charred lips peeled back from his teeth. His three hundred pounds crashed into the guards behind him. Some of them went down, others were blocked by their leader's massive body, the rest were too stunned to react. Blade aimed at Chard's head and fired again. The head vanished in a cloud of smoke. Guards behind the toppling Chard screamed as Blade kept the trigger pressed down and the hurd-ray pouring into their ranks. Suddenly the doorway to the Battle Command Center was clear. Blade shifted his aim to the second of Chard's flanking guards, burning through the man's chest. With the other hand he hurled the grenade through the doorway.

It went off with a resounding metallic crash and the concussion made Blade's ears ring. In the confined space of the Battle Command Center he suspected the one grenade would be enough to flatten everybody. He threw a second, just to make sure everyone there would be not only down but out. Then he signaled to Wishun and Draibo. They'd drawn their own hurd-rays and were covering their fellow engineers and technicians. None of them looked ready to join in the fight and most of them looked as if they'd much rather be several light-years away.

Wishun fired a blast into the smoke-fogged door of the Battle Command Center, then turned to the men at the consoles. «Good luck at coming through this day. Targa will need your services even though Chard's gone. You may have a chance to redeem yourself for serving him.» He looked at Chard's headless corpse as if he'd like to spit on it, then turned away to follow Blade out into the corridor.

A wild burst of firing greeted them as they reached the guard post. The guards were gone but Blade saw a cluster of Security men on the far side of the room, near the elevator doors. They seemed to be firing wildly at anything that moved. Blade and the engineers went to cover behind the guard post's console and opened fire. Thirty seconds' work with the hurd-rays turned the Security men into a heap of corpses. Blade led the others toward the elevator. He hoped it was still working. They had to get far from the Command Deck as soon as possible.

A laser beam went pfffht. Wishun staggered, clawing at his chest. Then he fired at the wounded Security man until the laser pistol and the arm holding it were both ashes.

Blade gripped Wishun by one arm and pulled him toward the elevator.

«No,» the engineer gasped. «It's through the lung. I'm not going to make it out of here. Give me a grenade so I can do a little more damage. Then run!»

«Wishun-«began Draibo, but the older man shook off Blade's grip with desperate strength.

«No, damn you!» he snarled, then coughed. When he'd finished coughing there was blood on his lips and trickling down his chin. Silently Blade gave him the grenade. Then he and Draibo scrambled into the nearest elevator car and punched for the farthest level they could find on the control panel.

The car was four levels down when they heard the grenade explode. They looked at each other but there was nothing to be said. Wishun was gone to join his wife and the rest of Chard's victims, knowing that he'd helped defeat their murderer. If a man had to die violently at all, there were many worse ways to go.

The elevator took Blade and Draibo all the way down to the end of its shaft. It let them out in a low, dimly-lit, and completely deserted corridor. From beyond an armored door across the corridor came the sound of machinery. The color coding on the door showed that it led to an ammunition handling room. While Draibo watched the corridor, Blade punched the control button for the door. As it whined open, he tossed a grenade through the gap, then jumped aside.

The grenade must have connected with something else explosive, because the blast nearly blew the door out of its frame. Ignoring the new ringing in his ears, Blade stepped inside and played the hurd-ray over every visible piece of machinery and human body. By the time he'd finished, the room was a stinking shambles that would never handle ammunition again. Coughing fiercely, he backed out into the corridor again and gathered up Draibo.

How long he and the engineer roamed through the corridors of Dark Warrior, Blade never knew. They lost all sense of time and sometimes nearly all sense of direction. Without Dark Warrior's immense size, the boarding party could never have hidden themselves aboard her or launched their attack. That same size also made getting places a slow process and getting completely lost a fairly easy one. At times all Blade and Draibo could do was keep moving and keep shooting, hoping they'd come out somewhere. In the meantime, they'd stay alive and do as much damage as they could.

Their own weapons were quickly exhausted and they had to rely on lasers and rifles captured from the enemy. Both of them had minor burns and bullet grazes in half a dozen places, their faces were blackened, their clothes frayed. Draibo cracked a bone in his right wrist diving for cover and after that had to shoot left-handed.

They kept on, although it was impossible to know how the rest of the battle was going. Dark Warrior's own heavy weapons were in action, for they could feel and hear them. She was also taking hits from the Kananite and Menel ships, heavy enough to jolt even her huge mass.

The lights, ventilation, and elevators were still running, so the life support and internal power systems hadn't taken any vital damage. The public address system was also still alive, but the few announcements coming over it were either uninformative or completely incoherent. The situation aboard Dark Warrior was simply developing too fast for her surviving officers to keep track of it.

At last the public address system went off the air in a chorus of screams, explosions, and static. It never came back on. Minutes later Blade and Draibo, more blackened and battered than ever, burst into the fire control room for Laser Bank Seven.

The five men there were professionals. Blade had to give them credit for that. They were still shooting accurately as Blade and Draibo entered, even though four of their six laser tubes were out of action. Even with bullets whistling about their ears the two men at the main control panel still managed to put a beam into a Menel patrol ship. It limped off, trailing smoke, then blazed up like a miniature nova and became a cloud of bluish gas.

By the time the explosion died, the five men of Bank Seven were all down, sprawled on the bloody decks or slumped over their controls heads smashed in by Blade's rifle butt. Draibo was also down, with half a dozen slugs in his belly. He was smiling, because he knew they'd won and also because he knew he'd be dead before the shock wore off and his wounds started hurting. Blade propped him up so he could see the undamaged screen. For a minute or two they both watched the battle in space around Dark Warrior.

By now it must have been going on for hours, but it was still as savage as ever. It was impossible to tell who was winning the ship-to-ship combat. Dark Warrior's escorts had the edge in firepower but they were outnumbered three or four to one. Blade stepped up the magnification on the screen, hoping to see more than darting specks and lines of fire.

A familiar streamlined wedge shape drifted into view-Trenbar, closely engaged with a Targan ship. Trenbar seemed to be half-crippled, maneuvering slowly and erratically as the enemy closed. The Targans were pouring laser fire into what they thought was a nearly helpless target when Trenbar suddenly came to life again. Whipping around in a high-g turn, she plunged straight at the enemy. A laser scored her side and peeled away a chunk of armor but didn't turn her aside. The two ships merged, then both were blotted out in an expanding ball of purple flame.

Before Blade's eyes recovered from the glare, he heard a sharp metallic whannnngggg and the floor quivered under his feet. Several more impact noises came in the next few seconds, followed by the unmistakable hiss of escaping air. Blade realized what was happening. Trenbar had fought her last battle so close to Dark Warrior that fragments from the explosion were hitting the starship like meteors, tearing through even her hull. It was time to be moving on again.

Draibo was dead, a smile fading from his bloody lips. Blade saluted him, then saluted the screen where the gas cloud was vanishing. Then he twisted the power setting on the remaining lasers to OVERLOAD and switched them on. When the explosion came, that would be the end of Laser Bank Seven and every Targan within fifty feet of it.

The air in the room was definitely getting thin, and Blade could see smoke creeping toward one section of wall. Nothing more to do here. He ran out, closing the door behind him and fusing the lock with a laser burst. Even out in the corridor the air was thinner and the light was dimmer. Time to head for Bay Two if he didn't want to risk being trapped aboard a dying ship.

Blade took a deep breath, then broke into a run.

Blade ran along Dark Warrior's corridors and down her stairs and ladders as he'd seldom run before in his life. He saw a few Targans but half of them were dead or dying and he went past the rest so fast they had no time to fire. Most of the great ship seemed to be deserted. Was the crew dead, preoccupied with damage control, or abandoning ship? Blade didn't know. Certainly the ship herself was dying, and Blade knew he was in a race with time to keep from dying with her.

Laser Bank Seven exploded, knocking Blade off his feet. Ignoring new bruises he picked himself up and ran on. The main lighting went out, but the emergency lighting came on, leaving the corridors in a sinister twilight. The elevators went out and so did the power for opening the doors. Blade had to open each one manually, releasing latches and twisting wheels with blistered, sweating hands. He didn't bother closing doors behind him anymore, even though escaping air was now making a noticeable draft everywhere. He didn't have the time to be neat, and in any case the more air that leaked out the better. Even if Dark Warrior couldn't be destroyed outright, she could still be reduced to an airless hulk.

Blade reached the entrance to Bay Two just as the ship's internal gravity field died. The door stood open and several bodies lay on the deck around it. Most were ship's crew, but Blade recognized two of the boarding party. As the gravity went off, the bodies floated up from the deck. Blade brushed past him and pulled himself through the door.

A hundred feet away an undamaged shuttle M 675 was floating just clear of the deck. She was turning slowly as the pilot used the altitude control jets to line her up with the outer hatch. Blade fired a burst from his rifle to attract attention, then threw his rifle away and launched himself across the bay like a slow-motion rocket.

They saw him coming. The belly hatch slid open and a weighted line shot out toward him. Blade twisted in midair, caught the line with his fingertips, and held on by sheer willpower until it pulled him to a stop. Then he took a more secure grip and let himself be drawn inside the shuttle.

The hatch slammed shut so fast Blade barely got his feet out of the way in time. Riyannah kissed him, then shoved a face-covering mask with an oxygen bottle attached at him.

«We're going to have to ram through the outer hatch,» she shouted. «Put this on, quick!» Blade pulled on the mask and shot up the ladder to the main cabin on Riyannah's heels.

There was only one pilot at the controls now and only twelve of the boarding party in their seats. Some of them were wounded and all of them were as ragged and dirty as Blade himself, but all of them cheered wildly as he appeared.

The pilot shoved his mask up and looked at Blade. «I was all ready to assume you were dead,» he said, grinning. «But she threatened to blow my head off if I left before you appeared and the others agreed with her. So what could I do?» The grin faded. «Get to a couch and hang on. We're going to have to go right through the outer doors and it's going to be rough.» He turned back to the controls, pulling his mask on as Blade dove for the nearest couch.

He'd barely got himself strapped in when the pilot cut in the shuttle's own drive. With the drive wide open the shuttle could accelerate to several hundred miles an hour inside Bay Two, and also flatten everyone aboard into their couches. Blade felt as if a whole family of elephants was sitting on his chest. Then a horrible screech of tearing metal half-deafened him. He was jolted and jerked about as if one of the elephants had picked him up in its trunk and tossed him high in the air. More metal screeched, the canopy cracked in half a dozen places, and then there was space and stars ahead.

The shuttle raced away from Dark Warrior under full power, relying on speed rather than maneuvering for safety. As Dark Warrior faded behind them, the pilot turned to his passengers and pushed up his mask.

«There's some transparent tape in Locker K. One of you get it out and slap some on the canopy. The main cabin's still tight but keep your masks on anyway. We may still get shot at a bit before we're out of this.»

Blade unbuckled himself, floated over to Locker K, and dug out the roll of heavy glassy tape. He was just floating up past the pilot when suddenly there was a new sun in the sky. It swelled up, poured out light for a minute that seemed like an hour, then faded.

Dark Warrior was gone.

Riyannah drifted up beside Blade as the light from the exploding starship died. «We put one bomb in the main power supply and rigged a warhead in the missile magazine. We would have been perfectly happy to just cripple the ship, then take her as a prize, but-«She shrugged.

Blade held her hand. «I know. It would have been a fine ending to our victory. We could have learned a good deal more about the Targans from examining Dark Warrior. But it doesn't matter now. The ship's gone and so is Loyun Chard. Anything else the Targans do in space for a long time to come will be peaceful.»

«We hope,» said Riyannah softly.

«It's mostly up to you Kananites,» said Blade. «The Targans will be just as proud without Loyun Chard as they were under him. I suspect the Menel will also have-«

As if mentioning the Menel had called them, the radio came to life. Blade recognized the voice coming across space as the Speaker-translated Menel ambassador.

«Targan shuttle, do you have Richard Blade aboard?»

Blade took the microphone. «I'm aboard.»

«Well done, and so say all of us who fought in this battle. It is your victory. Do you wish to be picked up?»

Blade looked at the pilot, who nodded. «Yes. This shuttle's taken a bit of a beating.»

«Very good. Stay on your present course and we will rendezvous within fifteen minutes.» Silence.

Blade finished taping up the cracks in the canopy, then drifted down into the cabin, hand in hand with Riyannah. They perched on the arms of couches side by side and looked at each other in silence. They were both drained to limp rags by the strain of the fight, too drained to think of anything worth saying out loud.

The minutes crept by. The pilot was just reporting the Menel ambassador's ship on the radar screen, when Blade felt a familiar pain stab through his head. He rose from the couch, floating upward as he tore off his mask. Riyannah stared up at him.

«Are you going Home?»

The pains were coming harder and faster than usual, but Blade managed to get out a strangled «Yes.» He thought, This is the first time I've been able to tell someone in Dimension X where I'm going. I'm glad it's Riyannah I can tell. «Good-bye and good luck,» he gasped. Then the pain was so fierce he could no longer think or speak. He reached out, felt Riyannah's fingers on his arm, then felt them slip down and pat the bracelet on his wrist. His own fingers twisted, clutching at hers, holding on.

The touch of Riyannah's fingers on his was the last thing Blade remembered as the pain in his head blotted out everything.