Buck Rogers 1 - Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (14 page)

Her Starfighter went into its automatically programmed maneuvers, rolling across the sky. The marauder craft followed, matching move for move.

Buck watched in shock, flicked on his radio, shouted at Wilma, “Take it down, Colonel! Straight down! Don’t roll! Throw on your space-flaps!”

“I can’t!” Wilma cried in response. “It’s against all the principles of modern space combat!”

And the sky began to explode all around her.

Buck shook his head, muttering half to himself, “Where’d you guys learn to fly! You’d never have made it past basic aero in my day, no less got certied for space combat.” Buck pushed a button on his control board. A yellow light flashed on the indicator panel. Etched lettering on it read,
Manual override.
Buck reached for a control lever, took a firm hold on it and swung it hard over.

He brought his craft in behind another Starfighter under heavy marauder attack. The marauder as usual was able to match its course perfectly with the Starfighter’s. As the heavy attacker came within laser range it seemed inevitable that still another Starfighter was shortly to blossom into flame and flying fragments.

Instead, Buck’s ship flashed across the sky, streaking to a point above and beside the maneuvering pair. Buck dived, swung through a difficult Immelmann, streaked toward the marauder from nine o’clock and pressed his firing stud once, twice.

This time it was the marauder rather than the Starfighter that blossomed into flame. For once Buck was able to grin . . . as was the pilot of the rescued Starfighter, Colonel Wilma Deering!

Buck pulled his Starfighter alongside Wilma’s, tossed her an old-fashioned thumbs-up salute and a grin, then streaked away, leaving the colonel to reexamine her notions of military doctrine—and her feelings about Captain William “Buck” Rogers!

While aboard the
Draconia,
Princess Ardala stood watching the aerial combat ending in the vacuum above her observation bridge. The marauder craft streaked away, abandoning their attack on the flagship, leaving the surviving Starfighters to circle triumphantly over the broad decks of the
Draconia.

Princess Ardala spoke aloud, knowing that radio pickups would capture her voice and carry it to Wilma Deering and the rest of her Intercept Squadron. “The people of Draconia thank you for your brave support, Colonel,” Ardala intoned, “and also bereave your losses. May our Father’s light guide you to safety. And may our impending arrival on your planet be equally blessed. Please inform your Council that the peace mission is arriving and ask them to proceed with the appropriate ceremonies.”

Back in space, Wilma watched Buck’s ship streak away. She switched on her radio and said, “Now, Captain—let’s go home.” She watched Buck’s ship and the few other survivors drop away from the flagship
Draconia
and into their reentry orbits. Then she threw her own Starfighter into a wingover and dropped back toward earth.

At the Intercept Squadron hangar, Buck Rogers walked deliberately away from his ship. Wilma had landed shortly behind him and ran from her own Starfighter to catch up with Buck. “Captain Rogers,” she called. Buck halted, waited for her to speak. “I know you expect undying gratitude for what you did up there,” Wilma said, “and I suppose you did save my life.”

“I was saving a Starfighter,” Buck answered bitterly. “You told me there was a short supply of them, and I can see why now.”

“Your approval of our flying skills is inconsequential,” Wilma Deering snapped. “You won’t be flying with us again!”

“None of you’ll be flying for long, if you don’t get rid of whoever’s programming your defense tactics!”

“
I
designed our tactics, Captain Rogers. They have seen us through a nearly endless war and have kept us in command of the skies throughout its duration.”

“Didn’t look that great to me up there,” Buck said sardonically.

Wilma conceded, “We have suffered casualties unusually high since encountering those pirates. I don’t know why . . .”

“I do,” Buck bounded back. “They know every move you’re going to make before you make it!”

“That’s impossible!”

“I saw it, Colonel. Take my word for it, if I hadn’t shut off my flight computer and gone onto manual, neither you nor I would be here now. You’ve got a spy, all right, but it isn’t me.” He turned away and again started to walk toward the headquarters shack.

“Wait,” Wilma cried. “Captain Rogers, the princess denied your story. I have no choice but to arrest you, pending a renewed proceeding in your case.” He kept on walking. “Captain Rogers! Don’t make me shoot you again!”

Buck turned back and saw Wilma’s hand resting on the holster that held her laser pistol. “Wilma,” Buck said, “where can I go? The only home that I know isn’t just miles away, it’s separated from us by centuries! There’s no place for me to hide. So just forget this silly arrest stuff, and get your act together.”

As he had before, Buck simply turned his back and walked away. But this time he heard no count, nor did Wilma unholster her laser. Instead she stood confused, watching Buck Rogers’ form diminish as he crossed the landing pad. She muttered under her breath, whispering angry curses that would have curled the hair of a longshoreman in Buck Rogers’ time, yet fighting to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling over onto her softly rounded cheeks. Her mood held for a few seconds, then was broken by a mellow, soothing voice.

“Colonel Deering, have you seen Captain Rogers?” It was none other than Dr. Theopolis, his plastic case cleaned and polished to show no sign of his ordeal in Anarchia. He hung from the neck of his drone Twiki, also cleaned up, refurbished, and restored to perfect condition.

“That man Rogers is a primitive barbarian,” Wilma grumbled.

Theopolis said simply, “Oh?”

“Not to mention,” Wilma continued, “a liar!”

“Oh, dear,” Theopolis said, “I
am
sorry to hear that. It’s going to make matters very, very awkward that you feel that way.”

“Sending Captain Rogers back to Anarchia will not be awkward. And this time there will be no rescue expedition!”

“But I’m afraid . . . that there is.” Theopolis paused, his lights flashing in confused patterns. “You see, Wilma my dear, our Council has had a formal request from her majesty, the Princess Ardala.”

“What’s that got to do with Buck Rogers?” Wilma demanded.

“Everything,” Theopolis said. “They wish to decorate him for valor. With the Draconian Order of Merit or some such award. The
princess
says that he single-handedly saved her unarmed flagship from attack by the renegade pirates.”

“Did you say
single-handedly?”

“Apparently, even your command ship was nearly destroyed, Wilma. Were it not for Captain Rogers’ inordinate skills and quick thinking, the princess feels that—”

“I’m not interested in what the princess feels,” Wilma cut him off agitatedly. “I know what happened. I was there.”

She turned away and began to cross the field, anger and resentment visible in every line of her trim body. “And what’s more,” she called back at Theopolis, “if Captain Rogers is to remain out of custody, then I am personally going to see that you are held responsible for him. Wherever he goes, whatever he does! And whatever the consequences! Good day, Doctor!”

She disappeared, and now it was Theopolis’ turn to grumble in distress. “Dear me, dear me, did you hear that, Twiki? If the captain does anything wrong, we’re all going to end up back in Anarchia again!”

Twiki stood still for a moment, for all the world as if he was concentrating on Theopolis’ prediction. Then he began to scuttle across the landing pad, zigging and zagging like a broken-field runner. “Twiki,” Theopolis cried, “stop this! Where do you think we’re going? This is no time to get hysterical. Twiki, please, come to your senses at once!”

Wilma Deering by now had reached the office of her friend and mentor, the aged scientist Dr. Huer. She entered to find him with his back to the entryway, his hands clasped in the small of his waist, gazing abstractly from the window. Before him stretched the magnificent vista of the Inner City, its gleaming spires reaching nearly to touch the inner surface of the great arching dome that held the city in, held the poisoned air and vicious denizens of Anarchia without.

Huer turned as Wilma entered and listened patiently as she poured out her concern over the situation with the pirates, the dogfight, and her distressing relationship with Captain Buck Rogers. When she finished, Huer said, “I’m inclined to think that the pirates and Buck are the least of our worries. The Council was too quick to accept this treaty with the Draconians. They took them at face value, and I fear that was a mistake.”

“It was understandable,” Wilma said. “We need that trade! If Earth doesn’t have an assured, steady flow of food coming in, we face either another holocaust or a long, slow slide toward barbarism.”

“Still,” Huer persisted, “my apprehension is unrelieved.”

“Maybe I can help a little,” Wilma volunteered. Dr. Huer stood, listening closely. “Our visit to the Draconian spacecraft may have proved Captain Rogers to be a liar,” Wilma said, “but it also proved that the Draconian ship is unarmed, and our scanners picked up no other warcraft within range. The only other ships within striking range were the pirate marauders that attacked while we were up.”

“Then you believe it’s safe to allow the
Draconia
to penetrate our shield?”

“I believe we can admit the
Draconia
into the Inner City itself. They have no attack craft with enough range to have arrived since we checked out the
Draconia.”

“You don’t know how much better you’ve made me feel,” Huer said gratefully.

Aboard the
Draconia
the Princess Ardala posed and preened before her mirror. At a knock on her door and the princess’ command of “Enter,” Tigerman stepped aside and admitted Kane to the royal chamber. Kane had donned his own fanciest and most elaborate dress uniform, and he advanced to stand behind the preening princess so she could see him as well as herself in her boudoir mirror.

“You are ravishing tonight, my princess,” Kane lipped coolly.

“Your
princess?” Ardala asked suspiciously. “That has the ring of possession to it, Kane.”

The uniformed man reached with his arms and folded them around the magnificently outfitted princess. He bent and placed a kiss on the back of her neck. “I was thinking more of a partnership than of possession,” he explained.

“Do you truly desire me, Kane?” the princess asked. “Or is it merely my throne that draws you to me?” She disengaged herself from his arms and turned on her dressing-seat to gaze up at him and receive her answer.

“It is
your
desires I serve,” Kane said. “I will see to it that one day you will sit on your father’s throne as the queen of
all the empire
.” With these words Kane bent and kissed the princess directly on the mouth. She permitted him the liberty, then slowly drew away as his demands became greater.

“Conserve your strength, Kane,” she commanded. “I’ll need your help soon enough. Tomorrow we make our move—the conquest of
Earth
!”

As she broke away from him, Kane said, “Tomorrow,
we
conquer Earth! You could never have reached this point without me, Ardala.”

“You truly believe that, don’t you, Kane?” The princess’ voice was contemptuous of her courtier.

“It is a fact,” Kane asserted. “Save for having me at your side, your father would have given this plum to one of your sisters and their warlord husbands. A woman alone, with no husband—to conquer Earth, the greatest prize in all the empire? Never!”

Ardala sneered. “Your ego is your most unattractive feature, Kane, do you know that? There are some things about you that I do admire, but when you start bragging you make me think of sending you to join the stoker gang.”

“Learn to love my ego, princess. Don’t despise self-appreciation. I will lead you to greatness!” He paused, then resumed. “Now let us go on. Our friends on earth await their new princess—whether they know it or not!” And he burst into great, ringing peals of strangely frightening laughter.

S E V E N

On the Earth of the twenty-fifth century there were the inner cities and then there was
The Inner City.
Within the Inner City there were chambers and halls, reception rooms and splendid conference parlors and magnificent public buildings of every sort and description. But none could compare with the Palace of Mirrors.

Within the Palace of Mirrors there were splendid chambers and halls of every purpose and sort, each more magnificent and sumptuous than the next, for all of the surviving wealth and all of the surviving glory of earth was represented here. And even so, even within the Palace of Mirrors, there was no chamber to compare even remotely, in dazzling magnificence, with the Grand Ballroom.

The room presented a dazzling vista of immense chandeliers, glorious, dazzling coruscations of panspectral light that gave the impression that the entire ceiling of the Grand Ballroom was a single, gargantuan, multifaceted lens whose display of ever-shifting illumination never ceased to vary and delight the eye of the beholder.