The Mandate of Heaven (43 page)

“I don’t suppose you could prise this door open?” Sanderson asked hopefully.

“Sadly not,” Hadley shook his head.  “I think rumours of our enhanced strength have become more than slightly exaggerated over the years.”

“Shame,” Sanderson said, giving the door another hefty kick, in the hope that it might suddenly decide to open, but it didn’t.

“However, I did bring something along with me that might be of some help.”  With a flourish he reached into his suit pocket and withdrew a fusion pistol.

“That’ll do,” Sanderson commented impassively, reaching for a cigar, only to stop and sigh, despondently, when he remembered he still didn’t have a lighter.

“You found it,” Jessica exclaimed with a squeal of delight, catching her father in a tight hug, kissing him soundly on the cheek.  “Whatever made you think to bring it with you?”

“A long time ago, when it still belonged to your brother, he accidently left it behind during an overly long inspection of the outermost reaches of our domain.  He was critically ill by the time he returned, but recovered quickly when he was reunited with it.  Ever since then he never went anywhere without it, hence I thought it would be prudent to bring it along, although I’m not sure what you could do with it, beyond shooting holes—”

Lord Hadley hadn’t even finished the sentence before Jessica turned the weapon on the door.  A tight, intensely focused beam was immediately emitted from the pistol.  Four quick slashes later, and the massive hydraulic rams that opened and closed the door were severed.  She made equally short work of the huge hinges and, with a terrifying crash, the door fell inwards.

The portal, now agape, beckoned them onwards.

“That’ll do,” Sanderson deadpanned, holding out his cigar hopefully, only to sigh deeply when he realised that Jessica had already lowered her fusion pistol.  “Templeton, Baracoa, take point, make sure the shuttles are secure and the pilots restrained.  We don’t need them anyway.  Murdoch will fly the shuttle.  We’ll be close behind, bringing up the rear.  Signal us when the ships are secure.”

With a nod of understanding, Templeton and Baracoa ducked through the door and with weapons raised, disappeared into the gloom.

Lord Hadley and Sanderson took a step forward, only to come to an abrupt halt when they realised that Jessica wasn’t with them.

“Will, can you please escort my father to the shuttle and make sure that he arrives safely?” she asked, as the pair turned to face her with a puzzled expression.

With a startled glance in her direction, then catching sight of the expression on Lord Hadley’s face, Sanderson motioned to the side. “I’ll just stand over there, while you two
discuss
this change of plan,” he said, hurrying away.

“What foolishness is this?” Hadley snapped.  “I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know what’s going on here, but what I do know is that I’ve been lied to, repeatedly, by practically everybody.  Right now the only person that I trust is that chain smoker over there,” he said, pointing in the direction of Sanderson, who waved back, nervously.

“I cannot abandon him here, alone,” she refuted.  “Nobody else is going to help him.”

“I think that’s his problem, not yours.  He obviously brought this calamity upon himself.”

“He risked everything to save my life.”

“And has been more than adequately compensated for it.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I still owe him.  I cannot just leave him here, not if I can do something, anything, to help.”

“Personally I blame your mother, as surely these genes must have come from her side of the family.  Then go, do what you need to do, but know this.  I’m not leaving here without you.  I’ll wait for you at the shuttles, but don’t take too long or I’ll come looking for you.  I worried about you, you know?  It was such a whirlwind courtship, but I’m glad to see that you’ve finally seen sense and realise that you’ll make a good match.”

Jessica’s eyes opened wide with surprise, but after a short hesitation she nodded her agreement and, giving her father a brief kiss on the cheek and a promise to return shortly, turned back the way that they’d come.  Glad that for all her father’s unique abilities, mindreading wasn’t one of them.  As he would have been shocked to learn that she hadn’t spared a moment’s thought for the fate of High-Lord Stanton.

*****

Alex’s response was to drive his knee into Stanton’s chest, once, twice, and by the third blow he could feel Stanton’s grip weakening and using his free hand, made a fist, hammering it repeatedly into the man’s face.

Now it was Stanton’s turn to howl in pain and finally released his hold around Alex’s throat, as he fought for breath.  Meanwhile, Alex’s repeated blows to his face had caused the blood from Stanton’s nose to splatter into his eyes, blinding him.  Alex took advantage of his opponent’s momentarily blindness, by taking a step forward, catching him by the hair, tilting his head back and repeatedly rammed his fist into Stanton’s face.  When the man was completely stupefied, Alex switched to his chest, raining down blow after blow, causing Stanton to moan in pain and double up.  A kick to the ribs sent him crashing to the floor, yet Alex didn’t follow up on this.  Instead, he stepped back into the darkness and reached down to pick up his fusion pistol that had gone spinning from his grasp by Stanton’s surprise assault.  Picking the weapon up, he strode back towards Stanton who was still lying, face down, on the floor.  He once again grasped the man by the hair and pulled him to his knees.  Stepping behind him, Alex raised his pistol until it was pointed at the back of Stanton’s head.

“Now I finish what I started all those years ago.  It’s time to send you back to hell, where you were spawned.”

The fusion pistol began to glow an ominous white, as it began to build up a massive charge.  Alex didn’t plan to leave anything to chance, not this time.  Once he was finished, not a single strand of DNA would remain of High-Lord Stanton.

“Alex, stop!”

The voice rang out, clear and loud, across the room and Alex could only curse the name of the first High-Lord that came to mind.  He didn’t need to guess at the owner of the voice, nor her impeccable timing, as instead he could clearly hear the devil himself, laughing across space and time.

“I spent five years of incarceration reliving this very moment and a further five years planning, in excruciating detail, for every eventuality.  But in the end it was all for nothing, as the moment I first laid eyes on you and learned you two were betrothed, that it was all for nothing.  I knew in that very instant that it was never about Stanton and I, our history, or mutual loathing.  It was always going to come down to this—you and I.”

“Don’t do it Alex, I don’t care what others say, you’re no murderer.  You’re not going to kill this man, not in cold blood.”

“Sadly on that point I must diverge,” Alex said resignedly, shaking his head.  Turning back to Stanton raising his pistol once again, preparing to shoot.

“Then you leave me with no other option,” Jessica said determinedly, raising her own pistol, pointing it at Alex’s back.  “Drop the weapon, or I’ll shoot.”

“Shoot him!  Do it now, before it’s too late,” the exalted cry originated from High-Lord Stanton, still on his knees, with his back to them.  “Kill him, or your family will be ruined forever.”

“Shut up!” the response was swift, and simultaneous, echoing from both Alex and Jessica.

“Please, Alex,” Jessica pleaded.  “Don’t do this.  There must be another way.”

“There’s no other way,” Alex replied, so softly that Jessica had to stretch to hear him.  “This is the only thing that will satisfy my conscience, the only way that I’ll ever be able to close my eyes and not fear where I might be when I open them.  There is a price that needs to be paid for all the suffering that he has caused, a price that can only be paid in blood.”

“Please,” Jessica whispered, focusing her thoughts on her pistol, which like Alex’s began to glow ethereally.  “Don’t make me do this.”

Alex turned his head and their gaze met, and for a brief moment in time it was just the two of them, alone, once again.  Then Alex looked away, a curious smile on his face, as if this was just part of his great plan.  “I understand why you must do this, it makes me wish for a family of my own, whom would defend me so loyally, as you do your own—” and for the last time Alex turned back, facing Stanton, and his expression hardened, “—and it’s for that reason that I forgive you, for what you need to do next.”

With tears streaming down her face, in the recesses of Jessica’s own mind, a voice cried out.

“Fire!”

The Nova-Class Dreadnought, Elysium Fields, was destroyed in 2532 by the combined fleets of High-Lord Stanton and Hadley.

I shed a solitary tear, for the only place that I’d ever called home.

—From the journal of
Lord Alexander Greystone
.

“Fetch Senior Chief Petty Officer Reynolds,” Lord Granville shouted, as he got up from the floor and dusted off his suit.  “And be quick about it, seeing we’ve only got five minutes left before we all become Swiss cheese.”

“Swiss cheese, my Lord?” the Captain asked, confused.

“A rare and exotic delicacy from Earth.  Something that you will have never tasted and, considering its price and the amount I pay you, almost certainly never will.”

“Noted, my Lord,” the Captain replied.  “However, I fail to see how Chief Reynolds is going to make much difference.”

“That’s why I’m a Lord and you’re just the hired help.”

“Aye? Chief Reynolds here.”  The instantly recognisable and thickly accented voice of Senior Chief Petty Officer Reynolds could suddenly be heard blaring out of a small speaker in the Captain’s chair.  “Wot ya want, you crusty, miserable, tight fisted bastard?”

“Chief, how are you?” Granville asked, overly cheerful.

“Terrible, as somebody keeps shooting at us and breaking things on
my
ship.”

“Well, the good news is that we’re going to put a stop to that, right this very minute and you’re going to help.”

“I am?” The disbelief in his voice was easily conveyed, even from the faint, scratchy voice that echoed from the speaker.

“Indeed.  Remember the proposal that you brought to me last month?”

“Aye, I remember.  You told me to bugger off, to stop thinking of fantastical and expensive daydreams, and get back to work.”

“I’ve changed my mind.  I think a practical demonstration would be in order.”

“Well,” the voice fell silent for a moment.  “We’ll need to reinforce the surrounding hull, check the breech and install an automatic loader.  I could probably schedule something in six weeks or so.”

“You’ve got five minutes.”  With the Captain frantically shaking his head and holding up four fingers, Granville smoothly corrected himself, “Come to think of it, if you could make it four, that would be fantastic.”

Granville hit the mute button and the long stream of expletives that echoed forth from the speaker were cut off.  Counting to ten, he hit the unmute button before responding.  “Now, you listen to me, you rude, unpleasant, contemptible, senile, old bastard.  You’ve now got
three
minutes to make any preparations, otherwise I’m going to have you making non-stop repairs to
my
ship for the next twenty years or so, without pay.”  Hitting the off switch, he smiled broadly, stating, “Problem solved.”

The rest of the crew could only stare at him in varying degrees of shock, horror and disbelief.

“Uh, my Lord?” the Captain enquired hesitantly.  “What happens if, just if, Chief Reynolds isn’t ready in time?”

Granville froze with the smile locked on his face, but this time it appeared more like a bad case of rigor mortis.  “Better open a channel to the Battlecruiser
Valkyrie
,” he faltered.  “Just in case.”

*****

Chief Reynolds turned round to face the empty gun deck, empty except for his gunnery crew.  “How old are you, boy?” he addressed the oldest.

“Not quite sure, Chief,” the boy replied with an impish grin.  “But my mamma says around fifteen, give or take a few years.”

“Fifteen,” Reynolds shook his head in amazement.  “And you do know that you’re never,
ever
, going to get paid for this job, right?”

“Sure Chief,” the boy replied unconcerned.  “But I get two meals a day and—” he faltered, not sure if he should continue on.

“And?” Reynolds prompted him.

“Well, my mamma said if I’m not too hungry and have a little extra to spare, perhaps I could fit some of it into my pocket…”

“For your mamma?” Reynolds hazarded a guess.

“What?  No Chief.  Never.  My mamma would never do that,” the boy replied aghast.  “Not when my two younger sisters need it far more.”

Reynolds had to close his eyes and count to five, slowly, before he could swallow past the lump in his throat.  Things had become far worse since Alex had left.  It had been around the same time that anyone had last been paid.  Not that he cared about the money, what was he going to spend it on?  Anything he paid for and the money would have gone straight back into Lord Granville’s pocket.

“Right,” he drawled.  “Remind me to instruct Chef, double rations for you from now on.  Okay let’s get on with this.  We’ve already got the breech installed and the rammers have been primed with powder, so all we need to do is to get the shell into the breech.”

Reynolds trailed off as he spotted the four thousand kilogram shell, that had taken a dozen men over an hour to carry into the turret and was now stored on the other side of the gun deck, over twenty-five metres distant from the breech.  Normally there was an automatic loader that carried the shell from the magazines, deep in the belly of the ship, to its position.  This had been removed when the ship had been decommissioned and now nothing filled the intervening gap, except recycled air.

“Now lads, first order of business, we need to get this shell into the breech, so we must check to see what we have to work with.” Reynolds said.  Thirty seconds later they’d gathered everything within reach; a few yards of rope, duct tape, a paper clip and some used chewing gum.

“This could require some lateral thinking, boys,” Reynolds said, scratching his head.

*****

“Admiral, we’re almost in position to come alongside the enemy ship.”

“Well, it’s about time,” Admiral Sloane groused, as he’d been grinding his teeth together in frustration, as time-and-time-again the dreadnought had intercepted their weapons fire.  The few shells that managed to get through deflected off their armour or only inflicted minimal damage.  Their frontal armour was just too strong, and it wasn’t until they got alongside and could direct their fire amidships, that they had any hope of inflicting any serious damage.

“We’ve got an incoming communication from
Elysium Fields
,” the Communications Officer called out.  “Seems that Lord Granville wishes to talk to you again, Admiral.”

“Open a channel,” Sloane ordered.  “I expect Granville has finally recognised the futility of the situation and has come to beg for his life.  We’ll destroy the station, with him on it, but it will be amusing to listen to him whine.  Put him through.”

“Admiral Sloane, thank you for taking the time to talk with me,” Granville announced, upon setting eyes on him.  “I was worried you might refuse, you know, hard feelings and all that.  What with the destruction of so many of your ships, but I’m relieved to know that you’ve got absolutely no self-esteem whatsoever.”

“What’s the reason for this call?” Sloane frustratedly demanded.  “If you’ve come to discuss terms of
your
surrender, you should know it’s far too late for that.”

“What is it with you and surrender?  Surrender this, surrender that, it’s all that you keep going on about.”

“Is there a point to this call?”

“Absolutely,” Granville beamed.  “The weather.”

Sloane blinked.

“It’s been mighty fine recently, don’t you think?”

“You called to discuss the weather?  Are you mad?  We’re in interstellar space!”

“Isn’t that what two refined, and I use the term loosely, civilized gentleman, discuss upon first meeting?  The cosmic rays have just been glorious recently, and the interstellar dust?  Well, it’s just been so fine that it hardly impedes the view at all, I should know, as I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time just staring—”

“Where’s High-Lord Stanton?” Sloane interrupted the tirade.  He cared little if the High-Lord was dead or alive.  However, if dead, then that would be some good news at least.  If by some small miracle he still lived, well Sloane would soon rectify that.

This time it was Granville’s turn to blink, surprised by the question.  “I’m not entirely sure, but if you can give me some time, I’d be happy to go and look for him.  Mind you it’s a big ship and I would be grateful if you could  stop shooting at us while I look for him.  I know this probably doesn’t concern you, but I’ve got to pay for all the things you keep breaking—”

“Never mind,” Sloane again interrupted.  “I was just a little curious, but I know where he’ll be shortly and that’s good enough for me.”

“Oh, all right,” Granville replied, obviously dismayed. “In that case, wait one minute, what the hell—can I call you right back?  We seem to be having some, uh, technical difficulties, over here.”

The screen went blank.

“Well, that was strange,” Sloane mused out loud.  “How long until we’re alongside?”

“Less than a minute, Admiral.”

“Go faster.”

*****

“By all the High-Lords, will somebody tell me what is going on?” Granville cried out in fear, grasping at the sides of his chair, to stop him floating away.

“We’ve lost one of our artificial gravity generators, my Lord.  It seems to have been deliberately shut-down,” the Operations Officer explained, likewise grasping at his console, to maintain his seat.

“Chief Reynolds!”

“Aye?”

“What are you doing with my gravity?”

“Just applying some lateral thinking to a little problem we’ve got down here,” Reynolds replied, chewing on a piece of gum, as he watched the gunnery crew at work.  They were pulling the now floating shell across the length of the room.  They’d tied one end of the rope around the shell casing, securing it with a paperclip, to stop it slipping while holding the other end of the rope in their hands.  They had used the duct tape to secure their feet to the ‘floor’ of the gunnery deck and were currently reeling in the shell towards the now open breech.

“Better get ready for your demonstration, Granville,” Reynolds explained.  “As it’s going to be one almighty bang.  I just hope it’s not our last,” he added as an afterthought.

*****

“Lord Granville,” the excited youth, currently manning the master weapons console, shouted out.  “I’ve got a green light for a main gun, situated on our forward turret.”

“Well, fire it!”

“How?”

“What?” roared Granville.  “What do you mean
how
?”

“We’ve never had a main gun to fire, my Lord.  I just get paid to sit here and look at a row of shiny red lights.”

“You get
paid
?” a red faced Granville, bellowed.

“Only figuratively speaking, my Lord,” the boy hurriedly corrected.

“Excuse me, my Lord,” the Captain sailed past him, towards the main weapons console. He extricated the youth out of his chair and promptly started flicking switches and adjusting dials at an alarming rate.  Frowning, he paused for a moment, “We’ll have to switch to the secondary fire control computer.”

“Why, what’s wrong with the primary computer?” Granville enquired, floating upside down.

“We don’t have one.”

“Oh,” Granville replied, “How do you know all these things?” He motioned towards the bewildering array of switches, levers and dials on the weapons console.

“I read the Operations Manual.”

“Just great,” Granville moaned.  “Another bookworm, I’m surrounded on all sides by them—whoa, what’s going on now?” he demanded, for a noticeable tremor was running along the length of the ship.

“Forward turret, it’s rotating,” the Captain clarified.  “We’ve got a confirmed firing solution.  Do you want to fire a warning shot?”

“Not particularly,” Granville said, “But I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Fire in the hole,” the Captain exclaimed.

“What?”

*****

The forward turret mounting on the Nova-Class Dreadnought,
Elysium Fields
, finished rotating, coming to a halt.  Yet, even before it had finished turning, the first of three gun barrels started to elevate, rising by twelve degrees, orientating in the direction of the fast approaching battlecruiser, which, with its fusion engines at full thrust, appeared like a shooting star crossing along the starboard side of the Dreadnought.

For a long moment nothing happened, as if the mighty Dreadnought was taking a deep breath, in preparation for breathing fire.  The first time in almost two centuries, back to when the mutual disarmament treaties had been signed, consigning this ship, and its sisters, to the history books.

However,
Elysium Fields
had no intention of quietly passing into the night—instead it breathed fire.

The four thousand kilograms, mark eight, ‘super-heavy’ armour piercing high explosive capped shell, was propelled out of the barrel with a muzzle velocity of five thousand feet per second, fourteen hundred meters per second.  Propelled by a D640 propellant, containing smokeless powder grain, with a full charge consisting of twelve silk bags each filled with two hundred pounds of propellant.  This resulted in the projectile travelling at close to its maximum speed, of fifteen thousand feet per second.  At a distance of forty kilometres, this resulted in an almost ten second traversal time to the target.