Hidden Empire (85 page)
The first blitzkrieg scoop filled one cargo tank and rose high enough to jettison it, leaving a smoke trail in the thin air.
A resounding cheer echoed across the comm, and the competitive Roamers challenged each other to do better. The unmanned fuel
tank soared away from Welyr toward its rendezvous point.
Safe
.
In times past, leisurely skymines had drifted over the clouds like whales feeding on plankton. Jess’s brother Ross had been
the chief of Blue Sky Mine on Golgen; he’d had dreams, an excellent business sense, and all the hopes in the world. Without
warning, though, hydrogues had obliterated the facility, killed every member of the crew….
Jess monitored his scans. Though the sinking sensor buoys detected no turbulence that might signal the approach of the enemy,
he didn’t let his attention waver. Welyr seemed much too quiet and peaceful. Deceptive.
Every crewman aboard the blitzkrieg scoops was tense, knowing they had only one chance here, and that some of them would likely
die as soon as the hydrogues arrived.
“Here’s a second one, highest-quality ekti!” Del Kellum’s harvester launched a full cargo tank. Within moments, each of the
five blitzkrieg scoops had ejected a load of ekti. The scavengers had been at Welyr for less than three hours, and already
it was a valuable haul.
“Good way to thumb our noses at the drogues,” Kellum continued, his anxiety manifesting as chattiness over the comm band,
“though I’d prefer to slam them with a few comets. Just like you did at Golgen, Jess.”
Jess smiled grimly. His cometary bombardment had made him a hero among the Roamers, and he hoped that the planet was now uninhabitable,
all the enemy aliens destroyed. A strike back. “I was just following my Guiding Star.”
Now many clans looked to Jess for suggestions on how they might continue their retaliation against the aliens’ nonsensical
prohibition.
“You and I have a lot in common,” Kellum said, his voice more conspiratorial now that he had switched to a private frequency.
“And if you ever do another bombardment, might I suggest this place as a target?”
“What have you got against Welyr? Ah, you had planned to marry Shareen of the Pasternak clan.”
“Yes, by damn!” Shareen Pasternak had been the chief of a skymine on Welyr. Jess recalled that the woman had an acidly sarcastic
sense of humor and a sharp tongue, but Kellum had been delighted with her. It would have been the second marriage for both
of them. But Shareen’s skymine had also been destroyed in the early hydrogue depredations.
Now, three more ekti cargo tanks launched away from the racing blitzkrieg scoops.
Trish Ng, the pilot of a second lookout ship, frantically radioed Jess, cutting off the conversation. “The sensor buoys! Check
the readings, Jess.”
He saw a standard carrier wave with a tiny blip in the background. “It’s just a lightning strike. Don’t get jumpy, Ng.”
“That same lightning strike repeats every twenty-one seconds. Like clockwork.” She waited a beat. “Jess, it’s an artificial
signal, copied, looped, and reflected back at us. The drogues must’ve already destroyed the sensor buoys. It’s a ruse.”
Jess watched, and the pattern became apparent. “That’s all the warning we’re going to get. Everybody, pack up and head out!”
As if realizing they had been discovered, seven immense warglobes rose like murderous leviathans from Welyr’s deep clouds.
The Roamer scavengers did not hesitate, retreating pell-mell up through the gas giant’s skies.
A deep-throated subsonic hum
came from the alien spheres, and pyramidal protrusions on their crystalline skins crackled with blue lightning. The Roamer
daredevils had all seen the enemy fire their destructive weapons before.
Kellum ejected four empty ekti cargo tanks, throwing them like grapeshot at the nearest warglobes. “Choke on these!”
Jess shouted into the comm. “Don’t wait. Just leave.”
Kellum’s diversion worked. The aliens targeted their blue lightning on the empty projectiles, giving the blitzkrieg scoops
a few more seconds to escape. The Roamers fired their enormous engines, and four of the five harvester scoops lifted on an
escape trajectory.
But one of the new vessels hung behind just a moment too long, and the enemy lightning bolts ripped the facility to molten
shreds. The crew’s screams echoed across the comm channel, then cut off instantly.
“Go! Go!” Jess yelled. “Disperse and get out of here.”
The remaining commando harvesters scattered like flies. The automated cargo tanks would go to their pickup coordinates, where
the commandos could retrieve the haul at their leisure.
The warglobes rose, shooting blue lightning into space. They struck and destroyed a lagging lookout ship, but the others escaped.
The enemy spheres remained above the atmosphere for some time, like growling wolves, before they slowly descended back into
the coppery storms of Welyr, without pursuing.
Though dismayed at the loss of one blitzkrieg scoop and a lookout ship, the raiders were already tallying the ekti they had
harvested and projecting how much it would bring on the open market.
Alone in the cockpit of his scout ship, Jess shook his head. “What has happened to us, if we can cheer because our losses
were ‘not too bad’?”
I
t was an emergency high-level staff meeting, like many others called since the hydrogue attacks had begun. But this time,
King Peter insisted that it be held within the Whisper Palace, in a room of his own choosing. The secondary banquet room he
selected had no particular significance for him; the young king simply made the move to demonstrate his independence … and
also to annoy Chairman Basil Wenceslas.
“You keep telling me my reign is based upon appearances, Basil.” Peter’s artificially blue eyes flashed as he met the chairman’s
hard gray gaze. “Isn’t it appropriate that
I
meet with
my
staff in the palace, not at your convenience in Hansa HQ?” Peter knew that Basil hated it when the young king used his own
tactics against him. The former Raymond Aguerra had learned to play his part better than the Hansa ever expected.
Basil’s studiously blasé expression was clearly meant to remind Peter that as Chairman of the Terran Hanseatic League, he
had dealt with crises far worse than a petulant young king. “Your presence is merely a formality, Peter. We don’t really require
you in the meeting at all.”
By now, though, Peter knew a bluff when he saw one. “If you think the media won’t notice my absence at an emergency session,
then I’ll go swim with my dolphins instead.” He understood his tenuous importance and pushed, just a little, whenever he could.
Peter rarely misjudged Basil’s limits, though. He approached each small battle with finesse and subtlety. And he knew when
to stop.
In the end, Basil pretended that it didn’t matter. His primary advisors—Basil’s handpicked but diverse inner circle of representatives,
military experts, and Hansa officials—gathered behind closed doors around a chandelier-lit table as a light luncheon was served.
Silent servants hurried to place bouquets on the table, damask napkins, silverware; fountains trickled in three alcoves.
Peter seated himself in an ornate chair at the head of the table. Knowing his role, however, the young king listened in respectful
silence while the chairman went through the agenda items.
Basil’s iron gray hair was impeccably trimmed and combed. His perfect suit was expensive, yet comfortable, and he moved with
a lean grace that belied his seventy-three years. So far that day, he’d eaten sparingly, drinking only ice water and cardamom
coffee.
“I require an accurate assessment of the state of our Hansa colonies.” He swept his gaze around his advisors, admirals, and
colony envoys. “In the five years since the hydrogues killed King Frederick and issued their ultimatum against skymining,
we’ve had considerable time to draw conclusions and make realistic projections.” He looked first to the commander of his Earth
Defense Forces. Since he was Chairman of the Hansa, Basil was also the technical leader of the EDF. “General Lanyan, what
is your overall evaluation?”
The general waved aside the numbers and statistics that an aide called up for him on a document pad. “Easy enough, Mr. Chairman:
We’re in deep trouble, though the EDF has rigorously rationed ekti since the beginning of the crisis. Without those highly
unpopular measures—”
Peter interrupted, “Riots have caused as much damage as the shortages, especially on new settlements. We’ve already had to
declare martial law on four colonies. People are hurting and hungry. They think
I’ve
abandoned them.” He looked at the sliced meats and colorful fruit on his plate and decided he had no appetite, knowing what
others were suffering.
Lanyan stopped in midsentence, looked at the king without responding, then returned his attention to Basil. “As I was saying,
Mr. Chairman, austerity measures have allowed us to maintain most vital services. However, our stockpiles are dwindling.”
Tyra Running Horse, one of the planetary envoys, pushed her plate aside. Peter tried to remember which colony she represented.
Was it Rhejak? “Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. Why don’t we just get it somewhere else?”
“Concentrated hydrogen is not
as accessible
elsewhere,” said one of the admirals. “Gas giants are the best reservoirs.”
“The Roamers continue to supply some ekti through their high-risk harvesting techniques,” said the Relleker envoy, trying
to sound optimistic. With his pale skin and patrician features, he looked just like one of the faux-classical statues against
the wall of the small banquet room. “Let them keep taking the gambles.”
“And there is simply no other fuel alternative for the faster-than-light stardrive. We’ve tried everything,” said yet another
envoy. “We’re stuck with what the Roamers provide.”
Scowling, Lanyan shook his head. “Current Roamer deliveries don’t match even our bare-bones military requirements, not to
mention public and civilian needs. We may need to impose further austerity measures.”
“What further measures?” said the dark-faced envoy from Ramah. “It has been months since my world received a supply delivery.
No medicine, no food, no equipment. We have increased our agriculture and mining, but we do not have the infrastructure to
survive being completely cut off like this.”
“Most of us are in the same situation,” the ghostly pale Dremen representative said. “And my colony has entered its low weather
cycle, more clouds, lower temperatures. Crop yields are traditionally down 30 percent, and it’ll be the same this time. Even
in the best years, Dremen would need aid to survive. Now—”
Basil raised his hand to cut off further complaints. “We’ve had this discussion before. Impose birth restrictions if your
agricultural capabilities can’t support your population. This crisis isn’t going to end overnight, so start thinking in the
long term.”
“Of course,” Peter said with thinly veiled sarcasm. “Let’s take away the rights of fertile men and women to decide how many
children they need to sustain a colony they’ve risked
their
lives to establish. Now that’s a solution the people will like. I suppose you’ll want me to put on a happy face and make
them accept it?”
“Yes, I will, dammit,” Basil said. “That’s your job.”
The grim news seemed to diminish everyone’s appetite. Servants came around pouring ice water, using delicate silver tongs
to offer wedges of dwarf limes. Basil sent them away.
He tapped his fingers on the tabletop with uncharacteristic impatience. “We need to do a better job of making the people see
just how dire the situation is. We have minimal fuel, not to mention very limited communication abilities, thanks to the continuing
lack of green priests from our shortsighted friends on Theroc. Our fast mail drones can do only so much. Now, more than ever,
we could use more green priests just to maintain contact between isolated colony worlds. Many planets don’t have a single
one.”
He looked over at Sarein, the dusky-skinned ambassador from the forested world. She was lean and wiry, with narrow shoulders
and small breasts, high cheekbones and a pointed chin.
“I’m doing the best I can, Basil. You know that Therons have never been good at seeing the forest for the trees.” She smiled
to emphasize her clever choice of words. “On the other hand, Theroc has received no routine supplies, no technology, no medical
assistance since this crisis began. It’s difficult for me to ask my people for more green priests if the Hansa dismisses our
own needs.”
Peter watched the interaction between Basil and the pretty Theron woman; from the first days of his reign, he’d recognized
the mutual attraction. Now, before the chairman could respond, Peter squared his shoulders and spoke in the rich voice he
had practiced during many speeches. “Ambassador, considering the hardships faced by many of our Hansa colonists, we must allocate
our resources, giving our own colonies highest priority. Theroc, as a sovereign world, is already much better off than most.”
While Sarein fumed at the verbal slap, Basil nodded appraisingly at Peter, relieved. “The king is correct, of course, Sarein.
Until the situation changes, Theroc will have to take care of itself. Unless, perhaps, Theroc would care to join the Hansa…
?”
Sarein’s face flushed, and she gave a barely perceptible shake of her head.
General Lanyan drew his glance like a scythe across the envoys. “Mr. Chairman, our only choice is to take certain extreme
measures. The longer we wait, the more extreme those measures will have to be.”
Basil sighed, as if he had known this choice would fall upon him. “You have the Hansa’s permission to do what is necessary,
General.” He skewered Peter with his gaze. “And you will do it all in the king’s name, of course.”
