The Knights of the Black Earth (50 page)

Of course. That
was only logical. Still, they might get lucky. The captain might be either
forgetful or an idiot.

Entering the tiny,
cramped room that was the captain’s quarters, Xris was already mentally
preparing the plastic explosives, only to find the vault standing wide open.
Halfheartedly, he peered inside.

He hit the comm. “What
the devil am I looking for?”

“Is it there?”
Rowan sounded amazed.

“No, I don’t think
so.” He searched for a scrap of paper, anything. “But tell me anyway.”

“Well, it would be
a series of digits and numbers, arranged in what would appear a random pattern.
They’re not, of course. The way it works is that the command vessel of this
fleet gets its own stand-down from the admiralty, then they work through each
ship in the fleet. They issue a single cipher and each individual ship
completes that cipher with one that is uniquely its own.”

“Huh?”

That was Harry,
but Xris could have echoed his pilot. The cyborg stuck his hand inside the
vault, groped about in the shadows.

“As an example”—Rowan
was in lecture mode—”as commander, the code word I would issue to every ship in
the fleet might be ‘Raoul.’ The correct response for one ship is ‘Loti.’ For
another it would be ‘Adonian.’ For a third, ‘the Little One.’ Naturally, it’s
far more complex than that.”

“Naturally,” Xris
muttered on his way back to the bridge. No need ask what would happen when they
couldn’t return the code. “We’ll be ordered to shut down our engines. The
tractor beam will lock on to us, drag us ignominiously onto that dreadnought.
Any attempt to flee and we’ll be blown out of the stars. And fleeing isn’t
going to save the king.”

Of course—the
thought came to him—being taken prisoner
would
give us a chance to talk
to someone, warn them about the danger. ...

Once we are
tractored on board. Xris went over it all in his mind. Once the commander makes
certain our ship is secure, isn’t going to try to escape. Once the guards have
boarded and made us all prisoners. Once we have given our names and voice
prints and hand prints. Once the sergeant turns our request over to the
lieutenant, who might or might not see fit to mention it to the captain, who
would have to get it approved through channels ...

“Fuck it!”

Xris arrived back
on the bridge. “How much time ...” He paused. “What are you doing? Have you
found it?”

“I didn’t look.”
Rowan was wearing that smug, self-satisfied smile that always sent a tingle up
Xris’s spine. She was on to something. “The codes are all in my files back at
RFComSec.”

“They would have
shut those down—”

“The front door,”
she answered, her hands busy on the keyboard, her eyes scanning each screen as
it flashed past. “They shut the front door. Not the back. There!” She glowed
with pleasure and triumph. “I’m in! Now ... ship’s name.” She was talking to
herself as she entered the information. “Registration number. Come on. Come on.”

Lines of type
flashed past in a blur. Suddenly the scrolling stopped. A white bar began to
flash.

“This is it!”
Rowan hit a key, laughed, jubilant. “You have it on your computer now, Harry!
Give them
that
when they ask for it!”

She was inside the
machine. Xris recalled the old days. Why hadn’t he ever noticed? Dalin Rowan
had never come alive except when he was hooked up to that machine.

A lot alike. Xris
flexed his mechanical hand. A lot alike ...

“Dear God!” Rowan
was on her feet and moving away from the computer as if it were a bomb, ready
to explode. “Oh, dear God!”

“They accepted our
stand-down code,” Harry announced.

Xris was at Rowan’s
side.
“Now
what?”

“A trap.” She was
white to the lips. “It was a trap. They’ve put the worm on me.”

The worm. A
computer trace that had latched on to Rowan’s transmission and would race like
a heat-seeking cybermissile through the convoluted paths of cyberspace until it
found her.

“Shut it down!”
Xris urged.

Rowan appeared to
be in shock. She stared at the computer as if it had physically assaulted her.
A blow from a trusted friend, a lover ...

“Shut the damn
thing down!” Xris repeated, shaking her.

Rowan blinked,
sprang suddenly back to the computer. Feverishly, she issued verbal commands.
When that didn’t work, she struck keys. At length, she struck the keyboard.

“Harry, cut the
juice!” Xris commanded.

Harry spread his
large hands, helpless. “I can’t, Xris.”

“We’d lose
everything,” Rowan said in a shaking voice. “Engines. Life-support. Everything.
I used the central computer. I didn’t think— There.” She fell silent.

Nothing happened
onscreen that Xris could see; he’d had wild visions of a blinding flare of
glaring white light. But apparently Rowan could read the signs.

“They have me.”

Only minutes,
perhaps, before the word went out. Glancing at the viewscreen, Xris saw the
destroyer suddenly begin to come about. It
might
be coincidence. ...

“Rowan, get down
below. Harry, set the controls to release the launch module. Now! Let’s go.”

Rowan cast Xris a
look—an apology, pleading, he didn’t know. He didn’t have time to care. Taking
her gently but firmly by the arm, he guided her down into the launch module.

“Launch release
set,” Harry reported.

“You’re next. Down
the hatch.”

Harry climbed
down. Xris was up above, his hand on the airlock controls, set to seal off the
launch module from the command module. Harry was halfway down when a thought
struck him. Xris had been wondering how long it would take the big man to
figure things out.

“Uh, Xris.” Harry
halted in mid-descent, peered back up. “If I go ... and
you
go ... who’s
left to pilot the command module, bring us all back up?”

“No one,” Xris
said grimly.

Harry shook his
head, slowly assimilating. “But that will mean—”

“Damn it, I know
what it will mean! Get your ass down there!”

Xris took one last
look through the viewscreen. The dreadnought was most definitely headed in
their direction. A red light was flashing on the console. Xris didn’t wait to
hear what they had to say. It could all be perfectly innocent.

“Yeah. And I’m
going to model nude for the cover of
Celestial Bodies
.” Xris chomped
down on a twist, bit it clean in two. Part of it fell into the launch module
below.

He shut the hatch,
sealed it, slid down the ladder to land on the deck with a thud.

“Time?”

“Six and a half
hours. We’re off schedule by thirty minutes,” Doc pronounced worriedly.

“Can’t be helped.”

Everyone was at
his post except Rowan, who sat huddled in a corner, staring bleakly at nothing.

Xris headed forward,
to where Jamil sat at the controls of the launch module. He passed Rowan, but
said nothing. He had no comfort to offer, knew it wouldn’t be welcome even if
he did. Let her alone for now. She’d be back to normal once they landed on the
planet’s surface, once they began to track the negative wave device.

Jamil was at the
helm, Harry alongside. Screens filled the wall, but there were no windows
anywhere. All the seats were high-backed, with multiple straps to hold the
Special Forces teams in place during the descent.

“Jeez.” Harry
looked at the crude and simple controls, and was shocked. “You call this
flying?”

“No,” Jamil said
shortly. “We call it dropping. Don’t worry. It’ll get us there in one piece and
that’s all it was meant to do.”

“Ready, Xris?”
Harry glanced over his shoulder. He looked and sounded reluctant.

Xris didn’t blame
the big man. Once the launch module let go, they would be hurtling down to the
planet’s surface with no defenses and only minimal guidance systems to get them
there.

The “Elevator Ride
from Hell,” Jamil had called it.

And there would be
no going back.

The Great White
Mountain Man said, “The reason deception is valued in military operations is
not just for deceiving enemies, but, to begin with, for deceiving one’s own
troops, to get them to follow unknowingly.”

Commentary on Sun Tzu’s
The Art of War

The Temple of the
Goddess on the planet Ceres was an enormous edifice. Built on the steppes of a
mountain held sacred to the people of Ceres, the temple dominated the
landscape, as it dominated the lives of its people. The complex was enormous,
housing the priests and priestesses as well as the numerous acolytes and
novices who served the Goddess.

The inner portion
of the temple was sacrosanct, could not be entered by the uninitiated, with
only a few exceptions. Today’s private religious ceremonies would be performed
within the temple confines, but the public ceremonies preceding would be held
outside the temple, on a specially built platform raised above the temple steps.

As Dion had told
Dixter, months of planning and preparation had been devoted to today’s
ceremony. It was vitally important not only for religious, but for political
reasons as well. The Baroness DiLuna, mother of the queen, ruler of Ceres, and
a powerful force in the galaxy, had forced this marriage on the young king in
return for helping him attain the throne.

The young king and
his queen had both been desperately unhappy in the marriage, which had very
nearly ended in a divorce.

The rift
threatened the political stability of the galaxy, almost toppled the young
king. Disaster had been averted, but at great cost. The near tragedy brought
king and queen together as husband and wife. The birth of a Royal Prince was to
be their reward.

This day would
celebrate the anniversary of the Royal Couple’s wedding and, most important,
they would enter the temple together to dedicate the unborn child to the
Goddess—an important ritual in Ceres. Thus, the king would officially sanction
the religion of the Goddess throughout the galaxy; their child would be raised
in the religious beliefs of both parents. And Baroness DiLuna would no longer
threaten to take away her fleets, her armies, her systems, her shipping routes,
and all the immense wealth these generated.

Press coverage of
the day’s events was unparalleled. So many reporters had converged on the
planet that they almost outnumbered the populace of the capital city.
Restrictions and regulations had been issued in regard to the ceremony itself
and were being strictly enforced. Only the major nets could cover the event for
vid broadcast; all others had to tie in to these.

Galactic Network
News was present, with its highly sophisticated off-world beaming and image
enhancement equipment. It would, as promised, make the viewer half a galaxy
away feel as if he, she, or it were seated beside the king. In addition, GNN
news anchor James M. Warden was the envy of every journalist from Ceres to Hell’s
Outpost for having landed an interview with the Royal Couple immediately prior
to the opening of official ceremonies.

Back when Dion was
Dion and not His Majesty, Warden had been the first journalist to actually
predict that this young upstart with the intense blue eyes and red-gold mane of
hair would someday become a powerful force in the galaxy. Warden’s first
interview with the would-be king was seen by political analysts today as being
a major factor in the ascendance of Dion’s star. The young king never forgot
those who had helped him in his rise.

Warden and his cam
crews were on the dignitaries’ platform, trying to set up their equipment and
getting in the way of the fevered workmen. A last-minute potential disaster had
occurred—a swathe of bunting, draped above the royal thrones, had torn loose in
an overnight windstorm and now appeared ready to tumble down and engulf both
Their Majesties in billowing purple silk.

To Warden’s mind,
the workmen were interfering with his cam crews, who were positioning cams for
the best angles and attempting to untangle and anchor down the masses of cable
that wound, like the sacred snakes of Ceres, up, down, and around the platform’s
stairs and supports.

Warden guessed
what must be going on in the mind of Cato, head of the Royal Guard. To him, all
these people were damned nuisances at best, potential assassins at worst. No
one was allowed this close to the king and queen without security clearance.
Every living being on the platform or on the steps leading up to the platform
or on the road leading to the steps that led to the platform was supposed to be
wearing ID tags emitting impulses that permitted them entry into the electronic
surveillance net surrounding the area.

Anyone entering
without the tag would cause a break in the net, bring the guards down upon them
with a swiftness that rivaled a jump into hyperspace. There had been, at last
count, ten such incidents in a twenty-minute period. Four badges had fallen
off. Three badges had malfunctioned. Two drunken college students, acting on a
dare, had been caught without badges, as well as an elderly priestess, who had
forgotten to wear her badge and was highly indignant at being detained and
searched.

Warden was active
in the proceedings, keeping a critical watch on his team, though he left the
placement of cams and crews up to the producer and director. Frequently, he
would indicate—with a wave of his hand, a nod of his head—a change, such as
getting a shot of the priestess slapping at the hands of one of the Royal
Guard. Warden’s wishes were always accepted as commands; he was known to have an
eye for such things.

He checked camera
angles, tested sound levels, all the while keeping a sharp lookout for anyone
of interest who might flutter into his web. Not that this was likely. The
dignitaries would not arrive until they were scheduled, each being driven up to
the base of the platform in official limojets in order of their rank and
position.