In Fire Forged: Worlds of Honor V-ARC (6 page)

Judith guessed that Valless had used Michael’s original explanation as to why he had reserved
Ogapoge
for his own use. Prince Michael was taking a few friends on an outing. That was all.

I wish,
Judith thought as she hurried after the others to the pad where the shuttle which would ferry them up to where
Ogapoge
waited,
that this truly was all, that Ruth and I were going out with Uncle Michael, perhaps to visit the treecat preserves on Sphinx or go snow skiing at one of the resorts on Gryphon. God willing, this will be so, someday. Someday soon.

When the shuttle reached
Ogapoge,
Judith realized that the little vessel’s armament was almost as well concealed as the guns of Ephraim Templeton’s privateers had been. Then she shook herself. Of course Security wouldn’t want to casually advertise the fact that the crown prince’s runabout was armed. Or, for that matter, draw any untoward attention to it in the first place. After all, concealment and surprise were weapons in their own right, and often decisive ones. That sleek hull probably concealed a deceptive amount of armor as well.

For related reasons, the ship was not adorned with the Winton colors. The shining ice blue of the hull was attractive and expensive, but told nothing of the ship’s occupant.

As soon as they cleared the boarding tube from the shuttle, they discovered that the ship was already occupied. A woman and two men sat in the seats closest to the back of the vessel. They wore the uniforms of Palace Security and the very neutral expressions of people who know their presence may cause someone important to lose his temper.

Indeed, Judith saw the storm that swept across Michael’s dark features when he saw the three additional security operatives. She also saw the sigh he swallowed as he turned to Vincent Valless.

“I called ahead, Prince Michael,” Valless said without waiting to be asked. “My duty requires that you be properly protected. Since we’re leaving the planet, and in pursuit of potentially dangerous people, I couldn’t take the responsibility for your safety wholly upon myself.”

“Understood, Vincent,” Michael said. “Do they know of our mission?”

“I haven’t told them,” Valless replied. “They’re part of the detail already assigned to your protection, so I could alert them without any need for explanations.”

“Fine. Explain now, making clear—very clear—why we’re not giving advance notice for what we’re doing.”

“Yes, Prince Michael. As I’m the senior member of this detail, they’ll obey my decision.”

And that means,
Judith thought,
that Vincent Valless is taking a lot on his own head. If something goes wrong, he could find himself being tried or court-martialed or whatever they do to security officers who let their subjects put themselves at risk.

Well,
she thought, taking the seat Michael indicated was hers and strapping herself in,
I’ll just have to do my best to make sure that no one has anything to regret
.

An eighth person, this one a regular Navy master chief, stepped into the passenger cabin through a small hatch, then paused, raising one eyebrow as he saw Judith and Todd.

“Your Highness,” he said in an admirably calm tone, and Michael grimaced.

“Master Chief,” he replied, then looked at the others. “Master Chief Lawrence is
Ogapoge
’s flight engineer. He’s been my keeper on these little jaunts for the last year or so. Master Chief, Lieutenant Liatt and Ms. Judith Newland. I believe you know the rest of our little crew?”

“Yes, Sir,” Lawrence replied, nodding respectfully to Todd and Judith.

“We’re going on a slightly different excursion, Chief,” Michael continued. “And I’m going to want everything the compensator can give us.” His eyes met Lawrence’s levelly. “And I
do
mean everything, Chief. We’re going to redline her.”

“Your Highness,” Lawrence began, “I—”

He paused, looking into the prince’s eyes, then glanced once at Lieutenant Valles and the other Palace Security personnel.

“Yes, Sir,” he said instead, and Michael gave him a tight nod before turning back to Todd.

“Todd, you take the helm. You always scored higher than I did when it came to piloting small craft.”

“In any sort of piloting,” Todd cheerfully reminded him.

“Whatever,” Michael said, a small smile quirking one corner of his mouth. “I’ve got some research I want to take care of while we’re in transit. I can’t do that and handle the ship.”

Todd nodded, solemn for a moment as Ruth’s predicament once again came to the fore. Then his usual high spirits surfaced and he grinned with pleasure.

“I’ll be happy to take her up, Michael. Besides this is the only way I’m likely to fly one of these darlings.”

“Good,” Michael said. “Now, hurry up and get acquainted with your own true love, will you, Toad Breath? We need to break orbit the instant Astro Control clears us.”

“I’ll be ready for it,” Todd said, turning to head for the fleet little vessel’s compact flight deck. “You just figure out where we’re supposed to be going once we get to Sphinx.”

“That,” Michael said, settling in to the seat next to Judith and pulling out his minicomp, “is precisely what I’m hoping to do.”

*
   
*
   
*

“They’re not,” Babette said, mild disbelief in her voice, “going to give in to our demands.”

George grunted reluctant agreement as he examined the information feed they had pulled in from various satellites.

“I thought,” he said, “when they stayed in that Judith’s apartment for so long, that they were going to knuckle under, that they were waiting for a reasonable hour for the prince to go clubbing.”

Babette nodded. “I know. When they headed toward Mount Royal, I wasn’t worried. After all, there are many more highly visible night spots near the palace than there are out in the sticks where Human Services settled those Masadans.”

George pushed his chair back. The holofeed showed
Ogapoge
already heading out of orbit, and despite their surprise, neither of them really doubted where the fleet little runabout was headed.

“Dulcis McKinley and Wallace Ward have two definite advantages. They have a solid lead, and they have the child. There is another factor in our advantage.”

“Which is?”

“Prince Michael may suspect they are being observed,” George said, “but he cannot be certain.”

“How can we take advantage of that?”

“I think we should switch to our second plan,” George said.

“So soon? Before they have a chance to come through?” Babette frowned. “Manticoran reactions to turning the child over to her Masadan father have always been harder to calculate.”

“As far as Manticoran reactions go, yes,” George agreed. “But we can be certain how the Graysons will react. There is a high probability that proof of how little the Star Kingdom could do to protect one child—and having that child turned over to their hated enemies—will tilt the balance of public opinion so far that the Grayson government will be forced by an angry public to renounce their alliance with the Star Kingdom.”

“True,” Babette said. “After all the treaty nearly didn’t happen. If the Navy hadn’t interfered in what was a purely local political situation, I think it’s likely the Grayson government would have decided against the alliance. You’re right. First goal has always been to achieve a termination of that treaty. Discrediting the Royal family has always been a bonus.”

George hadn’t waited for his wife’s agreement. He’d already reached for his com unit and was coding in a call for
Banshee
. The call took somewhat longer than usual to place because of the numerous layers of security screening he had in place, not to mention the fact that
Banshee
had been underway and accelerating at 5.491 KPS
²
for almost thirty-six minutes. She was already over 12.8 million kilometers away from Manticore, moving at 11,860 kilometers per second. At only three percent of light-speed, the time dilation effect wasn’t noticeable, but the forty-two-second light-speed communications lag certainly was.

As with the call to Judith, neither George’s face nor his voice would be in the final feed. Anonymity was everything, after all, and when he’d established initial contact with Dulcis McKinley and Wallace Ward, the professional criminals who were the Ramsbottoms’ hands and feet for this job, George had represented himself as a revolutionary fanatic.

Precisely what he—or she, for George had chosen to represent himself as an androgynous creature, rather like a winged angel in his contact with the criminals—was fanatical about had been left deliberately unclear. A liberal scattering of phrases such as “The Will of God” and “Divine Revelation” had been included to give the impression that the fanatic was not a mainstream member of the Star Kingdom, most of whom were pragmatic rather than otherwise in their political dealings, no matter how religious they might be in private.

“We are switching to Plan B,” George announced without preamble. “Instead of delivering the child to Choire Ghlais, make rendezvous with
Kwahe’e
.”

He waited patiently for the transmission to catch
Banshee
and
Banshee
’s reply to reach him. Eighty-four seconds later, it did.

“Rendezvous with
Kwahe’e
?” Wallace Ward’s voice said. “Why?”

He sounded both unhappy and suspicious, George noted. It wasn’t a surprise. The man was a professional, and he didn’t like unexpected changes.

“It was always a possibility,” George reminded him. “That’s why we set up the rendezvous in advance. Now the good Lord wills that we use it. And you should know that it is possible you are being pursued.”

“Unlikely,” Ward said hotly, a minute and a half later.

“All things are possible,” George rebuked sternly, “and only the Lord is infallible. As an added safeguard, you are to go to Aslan Station and exchange
Banshee
for
Cormorant
to change your transponder code. They are both
Pryderi
class ships, so you should have no difficulties. Take
Cormorant
for your rendezvous with
Kwahe’e
.”

“We will do as you command,” the other man said after the unavoidable, lengthy, and very irritating transmission delay, “when our bank balance shows that the added deposit has been made.”

“Done,” George said. “The additional deposit has been made to your account. When you transfer the child to the custody of
Kwahe’e
’s captain, your final payment will be authorized. The crew of
Kwahe’e
will take over from that point.”

George recited the coordinates where
Kwahe’e,
a hyper-capable ship belonging (through several shell corporations) to the Ramsbottoms, would be waiting. In order to not attract undue attention,
Kwahe’e
was in a distant parking orbit, listed with Astro Control as awaiting parts and supplies.

And so they are,
Babette thought as George alerted
Kwahe’e
to expect
Cormorant
and to accept consignment of her rather unusual cargo.

One reason
Kwahe’e
was owned by a shell corporation was that it tended to be given jobs that fell rather into the legal gray areas. Returning a child to her father, and recording the reunion might be peculiar, but it was far more legitimate—at least superficially—than many other jobs
Kwahe’e
’s captain and crew had performed.

Neither George nor Babette expected any difficulty.

After George had signed off, Babette rose and stretched.

“I must be going,” she said. “I’ve promised to go out with some of
my
friends tonight. I had hoped we would witness Prince Michael’s disgrace, but it seems I shall have to settle for an evening of dancing and fine food instead.”

George rose and embraced Babette with a fervor she returned. After Babette broke from his kiss she said thoughtfully, “I do have one regret that we were forced to go with our second plan. I had so looked forward to Michael Winton becoming disillusioned with his Masadan lady, then putting our Alice in his way. I really think she could have been the one to soothe his broken heart. I thought their meeting at Mount Royal earlier was very promising.”

“I agree,” George said. “I took some infrared readings, and his surface skin temperature rose quite a bit when he was talking with Alice. I don’t believe he is at all indifferent to her.”

“We don’t need to give up,” Babette said, reaching for her cosmetic case and touching up her lips. “After all, when this attempt to rescue Ruth fails, I doubt the relationship between Michael and Judith will survive.”

George gave a deep sigh, as of one who sees a wonderful banquet set up just out of reach. “That would be splendid. We have the Liberal and Conservative parties covered, but Alice could be our conduit into the inner workings of the Crown Loyalists. It would be lovely to have our daughter as the one who rehabilitates Prince Michael in the eyes of his peers.”

“Who knows?” Babette said, turning to go with a swirl of her skirts, “we may yet hear our grandchildren call our reigning queen ‘Auntie Liz.’ ”

*
   
*
   
*

“Choire Ghlais.” Michael looked up from his minicomp. “That’s our destination,” he said into the silence that had settled over the passenger compartment of
Ogapoge
.
 

Three hours and forty minutes had passed since they had cleared Manticore orbit, and they were just over fifty-five and a half million kilometers short of Sphinx, decelerating hard.
Banshee
was twenty million kilometers ahead of them, also decelerating. The other runabout would enter Sphinx orbit in another fifty-nine minutes;
Ogapoge
was fourteen minutes behind her.
 

“Choire Ghlais?” Judith said. “What is that? A city?”

“A private estate,” Michael said. He heard the tension in his own voice and forced himself to calm as he explained. “There is a town associated with the estate, and some nice hotels. The area is owned by a wealthy businessman, a major landholder. They say he has aspirations toward a title.”