Star Risk - 03 The Doublecross Program (8 page)

"They'd damned well better," Goodnight said. "Costing us enough in fuel."

No one bothered to remind him that he wasn't picking up the bill.

Grok and Goodnight had spent two weeks in space deep inside the Shaoki sphere of control, alternating their watch with one or another of Vian's patrol ships. They couldn't assign the task out, because they had only an idea of what kind of target they were looking for� and a very vague one at that.

Unsurprisingly, Jasmine King found it for them, making an intercept of a propaganda �cast from the Shaoki worlds on the might and majesty of the Shaoki fleet.

She'd frame-by-framed the �cast and found an awesome shot of the Shaoki battle fleet, ready and waiting.

The holo shot had been awesome enough for her to triangulate the location of the fleet, hanging in space off the capital world of the Shaoki II system, Thur. She made the assumption that the fleet wouldn't be kept in the boondocks but close at hand, for easy self-stroking by the Shaoki council.

Vian took out a patrol ship and found the fleet just where Jasmine had said it would be.

Goodnight was starting to get elaborate ideas, and decided the Shaoki fleet wasn't a target�they didn't have enough warships for a direct confrontation�but a tool.

Monitoring from the patrol ship found a lot of signals from the starships sent to a single location on Thur, below them.

That gave them a target.

And that put the raid in motion.

All Goodnight wanted was one lousy Shaoki ship to become his tool, a weapon.

The raiders went out, in their four ships, with a single destroyer stationed at the last jump point before entering the Shaoki sector, covering their back door and exit.

The four patrol ships made the final jump, one at a time. Goodnight was assuming that none of the Shaoki electronic lookouts would be ready for something that gave the radar signature of a 2 cm ball bearing.

The McGee ships were very stealthy.

Goodnight was right�unless the Shaoki were stealthy in a very different way, and had set a trap.

Again, they waited, but only for a day or two, to verify their original observations, plus to confirm the general times when work craft came up from the planet.

That established, the four ships crept toward the rough globe formation that was the heavy Shaoki craft orbital station.

"We might as well suit up," Goodnight ordered. "At least it'll smell better."

There were two blasters on Friedrich von Baldur's desk that had been given him by Jasmine. They were current-issue Alliance, a little battered.

Von Baldur rechecked the serial number on the first against a list of numbers. No match. He did the same with the second pistol; found no match again.

He did the same with another list; found nothing.

Most interesting. Those two pistols had been taken from the corpses of "bandits" by Khelat soldiers. Yet their numbers weren't on the list of pistols stolen or taken from the Khelat, nor on the list of weaponry brought in by the recent advisory team.

So where did they come from?

While Jasmine was pawing around, she'd also found something interesting in the government accounting office, made a copy.

Von Baldur thumbed through a printout, admiring the work.

It was very neat.

Somebody had been stealing the military blind.

Von Baldur, as an ex-supply officer and a most experienced thief, knew when and where to go looking.

There were some questions:

Was the thief or were the thieves part of the mercenary operation or was the thief or were the thieves Khelat?

If they were Khelat, how high did the thievery go? Von Baldur wasn't a damned fool, and if it went to the king, he wasn't going to make a lot of noise.

In fact, part of him wanted to link up with the thieves, in exchange for a good piece of the action.

He decided he'd have Grok look into the matter when he finished tailing about with Goodnight.

"All right," Goodnight said. "Move out."

Vian's patrol ship hung in space, three kilometers from the hulking battle cruiser Goodnight had picked for a target. He'd chosen it because it was positioned sloppily in the globe formation, and he hoped carelessness in one thing meant they'd be slack in other areas.

Also because it was one of the few surplus Alliance ships he was sure he could find in Jane�s, which gave him a fairly good blueprint of what lay inside.

Vian cycled atmosphere back into the patrol ship's tanks, killed the artificial gravity, and opened both locks.

A bit of paper, forgotten on a bulkhead table, was whipped out into space with the last trace of air.

Goodnight motioned, and Grok and his troops fed themselves out into space, immediately clipping on to one another as they exited.

One soldier lagged behind.

That figured, Goodnight thought. One of the two Khelat trainees with his team.

He beckoned impatiently, and the soldier reluctantly clambered out of the lock, and, forgetting to clip on, started to float away.

A soldier grabbed the man by his air cycler and clipped a lead on him. Fine, Goodnight thought. He can go into battle on a leash. We won't tell anyone afterward, unless he really screws up.

The Shaoki battle cruiser, big, graceful, old-fashioned, almost two kilometers long, was close.

Goodnight passed a line to the others, and they spread out.

"Behind" him, other raiders were debouching from the other four ships.

All mikes were open. Goodnight had given orders that no one was to break silence except to give an alarm.

He said, unconsciously whispering, "After me."

Steam boiled from low-power jets, and the ragged formation of roped men moved steadily toward the cruiser's stern.

Goodnight killed what little speed he'd amassed, and the raiders mostly touched down silently near the stern of the huge ship.

Goodnight had planned for that, figuring the drive area of the ship would be the noisiest and the least likely to be listening to odd clangs on the skin.

He pointed to five of his men, who deployed just below the cruiser's top fins.

In normal wartime, they would have found an entrance through a port or even through the drive, although that had always given Goodnight the kohlrobbies, figuring someone was about to light it off just when he was making his crawl. Although, if someone did, he certainly wouldn't know about it.

Instead, since Goodnight had no interest in capturing the cruiser, shaped charges were positioned in a rectangle, tied together with det cord, and a line was led off a few dozen meters to a hellbox.

The mercenary demo specialist bowed, handed the box to Goodnight.

Chas took off the two safeties, touched the sensor.

The results were more than satisfactory.

The charges went off as planned, tearing a rectangle out of the double ship's skin and lifting it back like a sardine can's lid.

Air roared out into space, and water crystals became ice and curled into nothing.

Goodnight wondered how many men and women he'd just killed, but didn't have time for mawkishness.

He leapt down, the cruiser's artificial gravity still working, into a large hydraulic control space.

Goodnight beckoned his warriors inside. They poured down and spread out.

Except for one man, who huddled back against a bulkhead. It was the same Khelat that'd hesitated on the patrol ship.

Goodnight clicked on an exterior speaker.

"Let's go, let's go, let's go!" he chanted, and the men ran toward two ports.

Except for that Khelat.

"Move out, troop!" he shouted.

The man whimpered, made no move.

"The hell with you," Goodnight shouted, never that calm in the best of times, let alone in an assault. "Damned coward!"

He made for the port, letting his blast rifle down into firing position, but something made him turn.

The Khelat was moving, pointing his own rifle at Goodnight.

Goodnight didn't bother talking, but blew a fist-sized hole in the man's suit and chest.

Then he went out, after his men.

The cruiser's automatic damage-control doors hadn't worked, or weren't turned on.

The cruiser was entirely in a vacuum, and its skeleton crew had died, most without realizing it.

They made their way through the ship, found no one living.

In the control room, Grok had set down his tool chests and was considering the navigation area.

"If I recollect," he rumbled, holding out a power wrench, "the overrides should be in here. Now, Chas, if you'll give a hand with these panel fasteners�"

"We don't have that kind of time," Goodnight said, and sent four quick blaster bolts into the panel corners.

It clanged free to the deck.

"How terribly direct," Grok said, peering inside.

"Ah yes," he said. "Here and here are the sensors to keep one from setting a course into the heart of his own sun. If you would do the honors, Mr. Goodnight?"

Chas obeyed, his rifle flashing twice.

"Now, if you care to set the course you've prepared�"

Goodnight had prepared a fiche that should work on any Alliance nav computer, and went to a control couch and fired up the device, ever grateful the Alliance built its electronics for worst-case scenarios.

Such as trying to operate in a vacuum with gauntlets.

He fed the fiche into the proper slot. The computer beeped complainingly, and lights lit.

Goodnight considered them, touched sensors.

Slowly, the objecting lights went out as Goodnight corrected the fiche's preset present position to match the cruiser's actual location.

"Hey, Skip," one of the mercenaries sent. "Somebody's trying to talk to us."

"Ignore them," Goodnight said. "Loose lips sink ships and all that. They'll worry more and shoot less�for awhile�if nobody's talking back to them."

He turned back to the computer.

"I think," he muttered, "that's about it. Power on, and to commence to traveling in� oh, five minutes.

"Hokay, troopies," he �cast. "Time to hit the bricks. Momma's going home."

The thirty-nine women and men went, as ordered, to the center air lock, intended for mass debarkation.

Goodnight touched controls, said, "It should be on its way," and helped Grok with one of his toolboxes to the air lock and the others.

A noncom made a head count.

"Sir, we're short one man," he reported.

"We took one casualty," Chas said.

The sergeant frowned, waited for an explanation, then realized one wasn't coming.

"Out of here," Goodnight ordered, and the raiders went into the lock and cycled out into space.

They'd returned to the patrol ships when the cruiser stirred, the nav program cut in, and it swung, pointing down toward Thur.

Whatever the fleet had been transmitting to below on the planet was now ground zero for the cruiser, as it accelerated "downward" on secondary drive.

Maybe the target would be a nice, fat command Center, filled with nice, fat commanders.

"Now that should make quite a bang," Goodnight said. "Dov two, baddies zero."

But he was preoccupied with thoughts of that dead Khelat, who broke under pressure but still had enough courage to try to murder Goodnight.

For what? Being called a coward?

Stranger and stranger, Goodnight thought.

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ELEVEN � ^ � And here you have it," the alien told Grok. "Transmission under way, two items."

"Two?"

"The after-action report from the Alliance Advisory Team to the Khelat Systems, as requested. And a page from the Boanerges Fine Arts catalog on Earth. They specialize in Moores.

"I think you'll be interested in the report� There is certainly something strange about the death of the advisory team's commanding officer.

"And the price on the Moore I want is circled."

"How expensive is it?"

"Now," the being said, "why do you care? You'll pass the price along to your client."

"Strong point," Grok agreed.

"I think," Friedrich von Baldur said, "it is time for us to prepare an Offensive against Shaoki." He deliberately put capital letters in his voice.

King Saleph looked nervous. Beside him, Prince Barab twitched a little in unconscious agreement with Saleph's hesitation.

"Do you think we're ready?" the king said. "The Alliance advisors�the gods rest their souls�seemed to think we were at least a year distant from any significant attacks on Shaoki."

"As, no doubt," von Baldur replied, "did the mercenaries we have replaced. Star Risk, unlike governments and firms that are first interested in building their bank account and secondarily in the needs of their client, believes in solving a problem as soon as possible. Therefore, we shall swing into action immediately."

"And what's this?" M'chel Riss asked as she yawned, very early, into the main Star Risk suite.

"This" was an ornately wrapped package with Riss's name on it.

"A bomb?" she asked.

"No," Jasmine said. "We've swept it."

"And?"

Neither of the other two responded.

"Awright," Riss snarled; tore the package open. It held a surprisingly tasteful bracelet, with gems worked in strange shapes. There was a note:

Perhaps we might see each other again without the confines of duty.

Wahfer

"How nice," Jasmine said.

M'chel put it on. "I guess so," she said. "I suppose it would be a good idea� professionally� to accept."

"Is he good-looking?"

"That has nothing to do with it!" Riss snapped.

She finally met Jasmine's eyes, and the two of them broke into laughter.

***

The call did come, and M'chel accepted.

The prince arrived in a long, dark lifter, with two bodyguards and a pilot.

He asked if she wanted to eat "real Earth food," and Riss declined, suppressing a shudder. She'd been trapped into real Earth food on too many worlds, always wondering why anyone bothered. The only people on Earth who ate well, as far as she could tell, were the French and the Chinese.