Wrath of Axia (The Arcadian Jihad) (10 page)

Blas and Rusal had to hide their amusement at Evelyn speaking to the First Citizen of the Nine Systems as if he was a petulant child.

The spaceport was a blaze of light. They walked around the perimeter until they reached a maintenance hangar. Karn produced a small tool from his tunic and made short work of opening a locked door. He shrugged when he saw them staring at the ease with which he opened it.

“You never know when you might lose your keys,” he muttered.

Inside the hangar was just a dark, empty space. Then their nostrils were assaulted by a strong smell of grease, and a faint odor of sewage. Evelyn tried to make Xerxes Tell comfortable, for he was still weak after his long period of imprisonment and physical abuse. She found him a chair to rest on and went to fetch him a glass of water. Blas prowled around with Karn until they stumbled on a low, narrow ground transport parked in the corner of the room. Through the gloom they made out lines of trolleys. Blas recognized them as sanitation service vehicles and explained their use to his comrades.

“When a ship lands, they send out one of these to clear the sewage tanks, empty the rubbish and take off anything else that is scrap or broken beyond repair.”

Rusal was talking quietly on his communicator. He finished and called over to them. “I’ve just had a message from Ban Cantar.”

They waited for more. “Did he find us a ship?”

Rusal looked grim. “No, he did not. As I thought, it’s an alert. There’s a massive security clampdown all over the planet. Every ship is surrounded by armed guards and is searched before it takes off. The searches are thorough, too, and the chances of our stowing away on an outgoing vessel are precisely zero. In addition, Rad Bose has issued a new order. Every vessel, military or civilian, must have additional Security Bureau guards on board to ensure the reliability of the crew. I’m afraid we’re stuck here.”

They sat in silence, facing the prospect of defeat even before they had escape from the planet. Blas looked around for inspiration. There had to be something, some way to get to a ship, to get past a squad of armed guards and go on board. His eyes came to rest on the dark shapes of the sanitation trolleys.

“I can get us on board a ship.”

“That would be a rare feat indeed, Captain Blas,” Tell said. “How could we fight our way through a score of armed SB troopers?”

“We don’t fight our way through, that’s just it. We’ll walk right past them.”

He explained his plan. “It’ll need to be a military ship, a light cruiser. When we take off we’ll still have the problem of the guard platforms, so we’ll need to take evasive action if they detect us. We can’t to that in a civilian transport. I trust there are orbital guard platforms, Admiral?”

“There are four, spaced equally at each of the Polar Regions and the equatorial axis. The second we get off the ground, if we get off the ground, they’ll be alerted to shoot us out of space as soon as we’re in range.”

“There’s no ‘if’, Sir. We have to get off the ground. We’ll handle the platforms when we get to them. I have an idea for them, too.”

“Let’s hope your ideas work,” Rusal said. “It’s damned dangerous. If those platforms open fire on a light cruiser during take-off they’ll blast us to atoms.”

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.” Tell smiled at them. “Another quotation, I’m afraid. I thought it appropriate.”

“If I had a single armed soldier for every quotation that had ever been uttered, I’d be at the head of an invincible army,” Rusal growled.

Tell looked puzzled. “Who said that, Admiral? I haven’t heard that one before.”

“Quentin Rusal.”

Blas and Evelyn smiled at each other. Karn had been exploring the hangar. He came back to them with five sets of greasy, stinking coveralls. He passed one to each of them and they put them on.

“I’ve checked out the sanitation trolleys and there’s one ready to go out. When we’re ready we can go straight out onto the field.”

“Very well,” Rusal said. “We’d better make a start, waiting won’t help us. They’ll be intensifying the search even as we speak.”

Karn nodded and they stowed their laser rifles in the rubbish bins mounted on the trolley. “Just one thing, Gentlemen. I’m sorry about this.”

He reached under the vehicle and rubbed his hand on the axle and withdrew it covered in thick, smelly grease. “Take some of this stuff, and rub it into your hands, you'll need some on your faces as well. We’re supposed to be manual laborers, not staff officers.”

Karn Vansen already had the dark skin of the Hesperian native, so the grease blended with his dirty, disheveled face. They smeared the grease over their skin. By the time they’d finished they all looked like sanitation workers. They climbed into the personnel cab of the trolley. Blas opened the hangar door and Karn drove outside. He stopped for Blas to jump on the back of the trolley, the way he’d seen spaceport workers travel. Clinging to the grab handles he held on while Karn drove out into the main dock area. Rusal was crouched down inside the cab, peering out at the ships on their pads. He directed Karn to a Hunter-class light cruiser. The ramp was down, guarded by a single SB trooper who seemed more interested in glancing down at his e-pad. Probably a movie, or maybe it was a message from home. Karn drove past him and stopped next to the ship’s sanitation ports. As they climbed down, the guard walked over and fixed them with a suspicious look.

“Hey, we’ve already had you guys around. The ship’s waste has been cleared.”

Karn was holding a clipboard he’d found in the cab. “It says here that it needs to be done again, something about a complaint from the captain.”

“Are you sure? I’d better clear it with the duty officer.”

He walked back to his station at the foot of the ramp and activated the commset. He was about to call the bridge when he stared back at the sanitation crew. His expression was puzzled.

“Wait a moment, don’t I recognize you?” He was staring straight at Rusal. “Wait a minute, you’re the…”

Blas chopped down once, a hard blow on his neck and the soldier fell unconscious to the ground.”

They dragged him up the ramp. Rusal and Blas carried the man down to the brig and locked him in while Karn, Tell and Evelyn kept an eye out at the top of the ramp. But they’d been lucky, as the ship they’d chosen was almost empty of crew, apart from the ramp guard and an officer and crewman on the bridge. Rusal smiled.

“I chose this ship because I know this particular skipper. They’ve been in trouble before for looting Hesperian artifacts. It was a safe bet that they were away looking for something to steal. We need to take care of the bridge watch. Are you ready?”

Blas nodded. They walked confidently along the passages of the craft until they reached the bridge door. Both checked their laser weapons and then Rusal strode through, his pistol held down at his side. Blas followed him. The lieutenant looked up, startled.

“Who are you? This is a restricted area. The sanitation tanks are accessed from…”

He looked down at the pistol in Rusal’s hand. Blas held a similar weapon, covering the bridge crew.

“I think this is all the authorization we need, gentlemen. Come with us, you are to be detained.”

The man looked at Rusal, horrified. “But, you can’t just steal a warship!”

Rusal smiled. “Son, you’re talking to Admiral of the Fleet Quentin Rusal. We’re not stealing it. I have authorization from the President of the Nine Systems to sequester it for our own use.”

The man looked astonished and Rusal jabbed the pistol barrel into his ribs. “Move out. We’re going down to the cells, so think yourselves lucky that you didn’t try to resist. At least you’ll live to tell the tale.”

As they walked through the bridge door, Evelyn came in with Xerxes Tell. Both captives recognized the former President after he’d wiped the grime from his face. They stopped in astonishment.

“Mr. President! We thought you were dead. I don’t understand, what’s going on here?”

“There’s no time for that, move on,” Rusal snarled, but Tell held up his hand.

“No, Admiral, it’s time we started to tell our story. They deserve to know.”

Before Rusal could interrupt, Tell briefly told the man the incredible story of his kidnap and imprisonment on Hesperia.

“Our aim is simple and straightforward, to take back the government from the people who have stolen it from the people and are systematically raping the Nine Systems for their own profit. We are few in numbers, but justice is on our side. For the sake of humanity I know we will win through, we have to. As for you, I don’t know when we’ll be able to release you, but when we do, you’ll have a story to tell.”

“You don’t need to lock me up,” the lieutenant said. “I’ve known for some time that things were very wrong, and what you say makes a lot of sense. I fought in the Second War of the Systems for the Republic, not this bunch of thieves on Axis Nova. If you wish, I would be happy to join you.”

“And me, Sir,” the crewman said. “The only reason we’re on duty is because we refused to go out looting and stealing. It’s not why I joined the navy, to be a thief.”

“Mr. President, we can’t trust them,” Rusal snapped, but Tell looked at Evelyn.

“Can you judge their honesty?”

She nodded. “I can, yes. They speak the truth. They will follow your orders.”

Tell looked at Rusal. “In that case, Admiral, you have two more men to help you fly this ship. I recall a man once said, ‘The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust’. I trust these men and I would ask you to trust them as well.”

“As long as you’re sure,” Rusal growled at Evelyn.

She nodded emphatically. “They’re with us, Admiral. There is no doubt.”

“Very well, welcome to my crew,” Rusal said, shaking their hands. Then he smiled. “And welcome to the rebellion. What ship is this and what was your next port of call?”

“Light Battlecruiser Star of Orphex, Sir, due back at Axis Nova. That’s our home base. Well, it used to be our home base. I guess it’s changed now.”

Rusal smiled. “It most certainly has, Son. We’ll get back to Axis Nova one day though, believe me.”

The two naval men were Lieutenant Dan Largasse and Crewman Waite Fallon. Blas was relieved that the Admiral had relented, as they just didn’t have enough people to fly a light Battlecruiser. Even now, they would be stretched too thin. He took the officer to one side.

“What is your department, Lieutenant?”

“I’m the weapons officer,” he replied.

“Thank God you didn’t turn out to be the catering manager,” he mused. “We’re sure going to need your gunnery talents before we jump into hyperspace.”

“I’ll prepare the laser batteries, if you wish, Sir.”

“You do that, Lieutenant. Crewman Fallon, you may take the helm. We’ll need you to steer us out of here.”

“Er, Captain, I was the communications rating, and I’ve only ever had basic training on the helm. I don’t even remember the basics.”

“In that case, you’d better start getting used to it, for the time being you’re all we have.”

He left the man to familiarize himself with the helmsman’s controls and turned to Rusal.

“Admiral, I’ll go down and configure the engine room to answer remote bridge control. We’ll just have to hope that nothing goes wrong. There won’t be anyone down there to fix it.”

“Very well, Constantine, see what you can do. I’m about to contact Ban Cantar, my former adjutant. I’ll use the secure comms system in case they’re scanning the frequencies, but we need to know what the situation is on the planet before we take off. I don’t want to fly into an incoming Battle Fleet.”

Blas left him on the bridge with Evelyn and went down to the engineering space. The bulky shapes of the propulsion systems were daunting, the atomic drives, fission thrusters and fusion boosters. But he wasn’t there to interfere with the mysteries of their working, as he only needed to divert the main controls to the bridge. He accessed the engineering computer terminal and switched the overrides to bridge control, and then he went back. He noted with amusement that Evelyn was helping Crewman Fallon learn the intricacies of helm control. When he looked closely, he saw that the crewman’s expression was both knowing and confident. She’d used her powers of mind control to give him the mental strength he needed. He approved, for they were facing such enormous odds they needed every possible advantage. Rusal looked up. His face was grim.

“I’ve spoken with Ban Cantar. They’ve taken Max. He’s under interrogation in Tulum Security Bureau Headquarters.”

‘Under interrogation’, where the SB were concerned, was a euphemism. He was being tortured. Evelyn looked pale. “That poor man, and he helped us so much. We can’t leave him to those animals.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Rusal countered. “We’d need a battalion to break him out of there. We have to leave Max to his fate.”

“Constantine, I can’t accept that we must abandon Max. There must be something we can do.” Evelyn looked at him with an expression that he knew well. She wasn’t about to give up on the veteran Hesperian. He sighed, knowing they had to do something.