Star Risk - 04 The Dog From Hell (23 page)

He had other problems, such as the pirates or the looming confrontation he would have with Ral Tomkins of Cerberus�and, most likely, his "mentor" Yarb'ro, to which he was hardly looking forward.

He "requested" that the Advisors be turned away.

They were�most rudely, with nightsticks�and the People ruled the streets of Helleu for a second night.

Star Risk was almost as upset as Nowotny, importuning Advisor Ganmore to end this madness before the situation got out of hand, and whatever gains they might have gained were lost. Now was the time for negotiation and ultimatums, not more rioting. In the necessary conferring, Star Risk hoped to see another opening in Nowotny's armor, and strike for that.

But the cheery anarchists in the streets weren't listening to their own Advisors, let alone Ganmore in the far-distant Maron Region.

Even out there, a good half of the People thought it was the time to strike against the Alsaoud, and gain what was their due.

Former pirates were now loudly declaring their patriotism, and a vision of having their own worlds again.

Starships were arming, massing, and discussing what had to be done.

The People also had their own sudden visionaries to contend with, that this was the Day of Redemption.

"We have created a hell of a mess," von Baldur said haplessly to M'chel Riss. "Do you have any suggestions as to how we can improve things?"

She shook her head, completely blank.

She was a soldier, not a revolutionary.

"We could just bail, and leave Nowotny up to his belly button in shit," Goodnight said. "But the bastard might wade out. We'd better tough it out and see what develops."

It was announced that President Flyver would talk to the people of his system and implore them to calm themselves and be reasonable, and that the Proper Authorities would bring order back, with justice for all.

Being a bit of a grandstander, he said he would make his address from the balcony of the presidential palace, and his most trusted advisors would be with him, System-wide holos would be 'casted.

"You think," Goodnight said, "Nowotny'll be dumb enough to show up for that? And maybe we could slip a missile in their laps?"

"I'm truly appalled," Jasmine King said. "Do you know how many innocents would die just to take out one man?"

"And besides," M'chel added, "there's not a chance Nowotny'll be watching the show from anywhere but a holo screen. He's not a complete dunce."

Grok just shook his head.

Goodnight even went into bester, and while in battle-analysis mode had von Baldur ask him about the likelihood of Nowotny being there and being vulnerable. He had to listen to his own superbrain tell him he was a romantic dreamer.

But they all decided to watch the show.

It was quite a show, indeed.

The great square in front of the palace was packed. Even a hundred or so People had dared attend, well bodyguarded by young women and men with Star Risk's weaponry.

President Flyver had the most dynamic, inspiring speech of his entire career written.

"We are all common people, of a common blood, and must learn to seek peace for all, and listen to our most secret, most loving hearts. Only then can we�"

He looked away from the screen he was reading from, out over the crowd, annoyed by a sudden, approaching whine that definitely should not have been there.

Five thousand meters overhead, three military starships patrolled, alert for any intrusion from space.

Three hundred meters above the palace, police lifters loaded with alert marksmen and the best operatives Cerberus had swung back and forth, watching overhead for forbidden aircraft.

A young woman of the People had found her calling.

She had been taking light flying lessons, intending on making a career with her own transcity delivery service. She was considered quite a skilled flier, soloing in a dozen hours.

But now there was something more important than her career.

Something more important than life itself.

She was airborne an hour before the speech was scheduled, orbiting out of Helleu over the ocean, keeping low under any radar screens, eyes flickering from her controls to the holo screen showing the palace.

When Flyver's introduction began, she swung her lifter back toward land, and went to full speed.

She came in over Helleu only fifty meters above the rooftops.

The palace loomed large in front of her.

Flyver looked away from his screen, saw the bulbous nose of the onrushing aircraft, had time to notice a scratch on the nose paint, opened his mouth to scream.

The woman's lifter never wavered, her grip on the controls never shifted, as she sent her aircraft smashing into the center of the presidential balcony.

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FORTY-ONE � ^ � M'chel never thought the word frozen applied to anything but ice cubes or certain, irregular, states of matter.

She was wrong.

The five members of Star Risk stood motionless, watching the smoke boil out of the president's palace.

The crowd around it was also frozen.

"Let's roll," Goodnight said suddenly.

"Where?" Grok said, seeming a bit amused by the humans' astonishment.

"Whatever is going to happen will begin in that proximity," von Baldur said, jerking a thumb at the screen. "I think better when I am on�or at least close to�the scene."

"When," Grok said, definitely amused, "you bother to think at all."

But he reached for a com, and called for Redon Spada to stand by the yacht.

The crowd outside the palace recovered slowly, and when they did, they wanted scapegoats. They found some close at hand�the small continent of the People. Even better, they were mostly women and children.

With, fortunately, a thin screen of armed men and women.

The guns came out, and the crowd stopped cold.

The People retreated, back through the streets toward their own district.

The Alsaoud started after them.

At that point, the military inadvertently saved the day, swooping down, very late, to see what they could do to save their rather incinerated president.

The crowd didn't know who owned the spaceships that were screaming down on them, and assumed that more diabolical attackers were at work.

They scattered.

The People would have done the same, but there was nowhere to go.

One Alsaoud patrol boat captain, angrier than the others and slightly more collected, snapped a screen into a tight shot of the street, recognized the People by their costumes, assumed they had something to do with the assassination of the freshly elected Flyver, and launched a missile.

It missed by blocks, and destroyed a government office handling consumer affairs.

Then the ship's executive officer jerked his superior out of the launch station, and took over the controls of the p-boat.

For this act of mercy, he was later court-martialed and reduced two grades.

Across Alsaoud, alarms were gonging the military to full alert.

Someone had killed their leader, and they were going to seek revenge.

As of yet, they didn't know on whom, but it had to be somebody.

Someone came on the official government com frequency and announced that Prime Minister Toorman would be taking over the government until the "situation clarified and elections can be held."

Star Risk had reached their yacht, and Spada had trapped the 'cast.

Goodnight started laughing.

"Ho-ho, with Toorman in charge, that'll mean Nowotny is eating several meters of boiled shit."

Of them all, he and Grok were the least disturbed.

In Grok, that was easy to understand.

But M'chel puzzled over Goodnight, unable to decide whether he was simply used to dealing with the unsettling because of his background in special operations.

She preferred that thought to its alternative�that Chas Goodnight was just an utterly cold-blooded son of a one.

There was a real, armed enemy�even if they weren't shooting yet.

The freebooters of the People entered the Alsaoud System at battle stations.

Even though the People weren't in any sort of battle formation, the Alsaoud ships met them.

Someone�no one ever knew who or on which side�touched off a missile, and fire was returned.

Ships swirled through space around Khazia, firing on anyone they thought was unfriendly. Frequently these were on their own side, warships that either didn't respond as expected or were just late on the password. It was nonsensical, but it was bloody.

Walter Nowotny hoped his flopsweat wasn't showing on his face as he bowed deeply to Premier Toorman.

"Of course, Cerberus Systems extends the same contract to you as to the late President.

"We merely struck our deal with President Flyver because he was the head of the government and of the same party as his predecessor, with whom the original contract was drawn up, and it will be our privilege to give you the same kind of aid as before."

Nowotny couldn't have known, but Toorman's twitch had worsened since he took over the government.

"That� that is good," Toorman said. "I haven't had time to review your contract, but I must assume that everything is in order and we shall have an excellent working relationship."

"I'm sure we shall," Nowotny said, thinking if we don't, we will with the new man.

He was still waiting for a reaction, some kind of reaction, from Ral Tomkins.

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FORTY-TWO � ^ � But whatever arrangements Cerberus had made with Flyver, either they hadn't carried down to the Alsaoud fleet yet, or else in the general excitement, their Fleet Admiral, an intensely political sort named Poel, had forgotten them.

It was an interesting sort of mess.

Since Poel hadn't survived the event, he'd evidently decided that the motlies of the People could be easily wiped out, or shoveled out of the system, and so hadn't had much of a coherent strategy going in.

His crumbling excuse for a strategy wasn't helped by the problem the Alsaoud had with the fleet itself.

Huge, sprawling battleships go in and out of style, depending on how removed from reality the admirals are, and how easily overawed the fools who pay for the defense budget are.

Friedrich von Baldur was one of the few experienced combat leaders who loved battlewagons.

Of course, his adoration had less to do with their combat handiness�which was marginal at the best of times�or their efficiency, which had always been nonexistent.

He loved them for their size, for the enormity of their admirals' quarters, the number of cooks that the officers' mess would accommodate, and other non-battle perks.

Why the Alsaoud loved them was never known, but their fleet consisted of some twenty superheavies, bought from various mothball yards for their size and beauty.

No one worried about how reliable these vessels were, so long as they were sleek and striking.

After all, Alsaoud hadn't fought any sort of fleet battle for two hundred years.

Their navy was not only rank-heavy and -happy, but the enlisted man's condition was accurately, if vulgarly, described by Goodnight as "sucking hind tit."

Their quarters were cramped, their food was marginal, their discipline was draconian�but by the gods, their uniforms were gorgeous.

Needless to say, there weren't long lines in front of the recruiting booths, and so the Alsaoud had instituted conscription, which didn't make service in the military any more popular.

Yet another problem was that these battleships, frequently maintenance queens, kept the Alsaoud from being able to afford the proper number of escorts for a rational fleet.

So the fleet, instead of being somewhat pyramidal in construct�one battleship, two cruisers, ten destroyers, twenty patrol boats, thirty logistical ships, as it might have been�was, roughly, one dread-nought to three or four destroyers and an equivalent number of supply ships.

This was not good.

But it didn't stop Admiral Poel from charging into the heart of the Maron Region and its myriad asteroids.

The marauders from the Maron Regions, many of whom weren't People, but out-system bandit sorts, may have nobly flashed into the Alsaoud System looking to save any beleaguered People, not to mention any loot left lying about. But they were hardly fools, being very aware that a good big man beats hell out of a good little man a hundred times out of a hundred.

And the Alsaoud dreadnoughts appeared to be good huge men.

So the intruders decided the hell with the ground-pounding People, they could fend for themselves. And they went, precipitately, back the way they'd come.

One raider, which had been rather hastily set up for space-worthiness, wasn't, and one drive chamber, already pitted, blew out through the side of the ship, fortunately taking only one wiper and one assistant engineer with it.

But it left the ship pinwheeling in an obnoxious and helpless orbit, and under observation by the officers of one battleship. Its officers grinned tightly, and bore in for the kill.

The pirate's commanders may have been a bit less than competent at combat-worthiness, but were evidently excellent at making friends and alliances.

Two destroyer-sized pirates, who'd operated with that raider before, heard its bleats for help, and, amazingly for warriors for profit, came back to assist.

The Alsaoud battleship was as intent on its prey as any spider closing on a small fly, and didn't "see" the other two ships from the Maron Region until they were within a light-year and had launched four missiles each.

The battleship's countermeasure officer yammered orders, arms windmilling, to launch AA missiles. Three were spat out in time, but without much guidance, and all four incoming missiles blew the battleship into three separate pieces, all of which began screaming for rescue.

Other raiders and ships of the People heard the screeches, observed the situation thoughtfully, and wondered if maybe the Alsaoud fleet wasn't a bit long on bluster and short on bombardment.