The Sword and the Plough (18 page)

“Where are we going,” the governor asked
quietly.

The sergeant shook his head and his grin
expanded to show his discoloured teeth.

“Well now,” he said. “I’m afraid I can’t tell
you that. It’s top secret.”

“You mean nobody’s bothered to tell you,”
Caroline said smoothly.

The fat giant stomped a pace forward his
features contorted and purple with rage. His finger stabbed angrily
in the young woman’s direction.

“Sergeant!” The governor’s tone was sharp
with command.

The giant man’s glare chopped back to Sir
Henry. His small, dark eyes were afire with fury. It was taking him
all his will to hold back, but he knew he must. He had strict
orders to keep the VIP hostages safe.

“Now, tell us please,” the governor urged.
“Are all the prisoners going or just us?”

“No, just your lot,” the sergeant
growled.

“When do we leave?” the major asked.

The big man hesitated. How he hated them,
their so-called blue blood, their superior airs, their birthright
to rule…

“
When – I –
say – so
,” he said finally,
emphasising each word in turn.

He glowered at the little group of prisoners
and the hatred arose in him, and the words he knew he should not
say spilled out of his mouth like storm driven waves.

“
Aristocrats!
Pah! You
think you’re so high and mighty, don’t you?” he snarled. “But
you’re nothing. Bloodsuckers, that’s what you are.

“
But you’re finished now – all of you
–
beaten –
you
hear? You and that… bitch of a queen of yours.” He sneered at the
hushed group. “You think it’s all a game, don’t you. You think that
fancy tart on the throne will rescue you – that you’ll win in the
end.” He gave a sharp laugh. “But it’s over. We’ve beaten every one
of your garrisons on Trion, beaten them all to a bloody
pulp.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Lars saw the
major place a restraining hand on Captain Lancaster’s arm.

“And your cruisers up there,” the sergeant
continued, waving a huge red hand skywards. “They’re ours now too,
every cannon manned by our own good lads.”

“They’re only yours through treachery,”
Caroline said quietly.

The governor shot her a warning glance.

The sergeant’s eyes narrowed to angry
slits.

“
Always so bloody clever, aren’t you?” he
grated. “But it’s all over. At this very moment, our troopers are
collecting up all the
weapons
on Trion, every light-bolt pistol, rifle, even
antiquated projectile weapons.” He snorted. “Pah! By Megran’s
moons, bows and arrows too, if we find them… anything and
everything. And why? Because we’re the clever ones, not you. And
we’ve got the hostages.” He gave an evil leer. “And there’s not a
damn thing any of you can do about it.”

“But the queen might,” Caroline inserted
quietly.

“Hah! Your precious queen? Well, let me tell
you, we’ve got her boxed in like a wild Megran sow and she doesn’t
even know it. We’ve fixed it so she won’t find out what’s going on
until it’s too late.

“
We’ve got all the cards,” he said the
tremble of a smirk beginning. “We’ve even got the
joker.
”

He reached out unexpectedly and jerked
Lars forward by his shirtfront
.
He clapped the young man heavily on the
back.

“The joker!” he repeated triumphantly, the
laughter welling up from the vastness of his bulk. “We’ve even got
the joker.”

* * *

The fresh scented air of the morning
greeted the captives as they emerged from the long, dark tunnel of
their prison. Trion’s twin suns burned down out of the pastel blue
of the sky scorching their eyes so that for several moments they
could scarcely see. They stopped and stood bunched like sheep,
uncertain where they should go, their shapes casting a huddle of
elongated shadows along the ground.

“Where do you think they’re taking us,
Father?” Caroline asked in a low voice.

“I don’t know, m’dear,” the governor
murmured. “Somewhere more secure, perhaps, or somewhere where our
presence will make it more difficult for the queen to fight back.”
He gave a glum smile. “I am afraid I don’t have the answers
anymore.”

The prisoners were in the main courtyard
of the old black stone fort, some twenty-five kilometres to the
north of Vegar, the onetime headquarters of the queen’s garrison.
Around them, the old stone walls looked down, walls which had seen
the birth of Vegar itself, and been decked with flags and bunting
for the celebration of five coronations and ninety Renaissance Day
parades. Now, for the first time in their history, the walls had
witnessed the defeat of a royal garrison. Today, they knew the
strut and swagger of alien troops.

The governor noticed it first. “Major
look! Look around us! The walls – it’s as if nothing ever
happened.”

The intelligence officer spun round on his
heels staring wildly this way and that. “I don’t understand,” he
muttered. “No signs of explosions, no black stone rubble, no blast
burns, no damage whatsoever.”

“
It’s impossible!” Caroline stared around
in equal disbelief. “I passed by the fort on my way into Vegar on
the day of the attack. Large sections of the walls had been
destroyed, the barracks shattered to splinters, and there were
fires everywhere.

“
It’s as though we’ve been transported back
in time.” She shook her head. “Everything is as it was before the
attack. It can’t be – but it is.”

The major nodded. His face was grim.
“You’ve got to hand it to them,” he declared. “They’re incredibly
well organized. Repairs that would normally take weeks, months
even, have been completed in a couple of days.” He frowned deeply.
“But no, that can’t be. The repairs must be bogus – fake. An
attempt to fool someone for some reason...”

Lars glanced up. Up on the ramparts
sentries stood and talked, the royal red of their uniforms bright
in the sunlight. Lars felt his heart leap, felt for one brief
moment the queen’s red was a miracle of vengeance upon the Megran
green. Then he looked again. Everywhere below the ramparts, unseen
from the outside, troopers in Megran green were conspicuous in
large numbers, their Meredith pistols huge on their hips, their
conquerors’ swagger plain to see.

Then he too, knew the truth – knew the fat
sergeant’s boasts and his own fears were real.

It was quickly evident the intelligence
officer had figured it too.

“
You were right, Lars,” the major said in a
low voice at his side. “The sabotage at the Communication Centre,
the Megran camp, the hostages –
this!”
He waved a hand at the sight in front of
them. “It’s all part of an elaborate masquerade, a gigantic
deception to delay the discovery of their aggression until they are
ready to strike.”

“As though the captain’s nightmare never
existed,” Caroline murmured half to herself.

“Exactly m’dear,” the governor agreed
quietly. “And as our fat friend Sergeant Wykes said, when the queen
does find out, it will be too late.” He frowned thoughtfully. “It
does seem, at least for the time being, that the Megran forces do
hold all the cards.”

“We have to do something,” Caroline exclaimed
worriedly. “The queen must be warned.”

The major nodded his troubled brow still
apparent. “Yes indeed, Lady Caroline – but how?”

Commander John Riddick settled back into the
black leather comfort of the command chair on the battleship’s
bridge and studied the computer report on the state of his
ship.

The ship’s computer waited the set length
of time its programming told it was necessary for the slower human
brain to respond, and then asked politely in its soft feminine
tones if anything further was required.

“No thank you, that will be all computer,”
the human answered. “You may return to your other duties.”

“Yes sir,” the honeyed voice replied. “Have a
good day, commander.”

The screen in front of Commander Riddick went
blank, and for an instant, he was tempted to call the electronic
voice back, and ask further questions just to hear the soothing
mellifluous tones once more. Despite a crew of over two hundred
men, his was a lonely occupation.

The Commander clasped his hands behind his
head, and stared out through the transparent dome of the warship’s
bridge into the black emptiness of space. The computer’s survey
indicated that the battleship
Prince Ferdinand
was in tiptop shape.

Prince
Ferdinand –
what arrogance
on the part of the prince to change the ship’s name. And the
impending war? He knew he had no right to question the wherefores
of it – something about freedom from royal oppression… Still at
times, he wondered…

As for the crew, he could vouch for them
himself. He had spent months training them into an efficient team.
Overall, the battleship was in fighting trim.

The commander’s gaze drifted out the
bridge window into the blackness. The ancient light of an infinite
number of stars stared back at him. It was more than thirty years
since he had been in battle. The Commonwealth of Planets had
enjoyed a long spell of peace since the war against the pirates.
How young he’d been then – too young to be afraid. He could still
remember how he’d felt during those frenzied days of battle; the
fevered excitement and noise of it all – the shouts, the curses,
the screams... Everything had happened so fast there had been no
time to think, no time to think at all.

He could still evoke the fearsome heat of
the turret, the roar of the light-bolt cannons; recall seeing the
enemy ship twist and shudder like a live thing, and then vanish in
a fiery ball of whirling debris; and recall too, the sound of a
hundred men cheering.

But that had been in the last stages of the
Commonwealth’s war against the pirates; a very one-sided campaign
in the Commonwealth’s favour, and the end of an era.

The king’s large and well armed fleet had
sought the pirates out, forced them to fight, and then ruthlessly
blasted them into oblivion. The pirates had not stood a chance with
their older and smaller vessels and obsolete weaponry. But they had
chosen to fight – there had been no other choice, but the gallows.
He could sympathise with them now, now that the time of hatred had
passed.

The giant star, Cyclops, came steadily
into view over the rim of the black planet lighting the heavens
around it. Was he too old for battle now, he wondered – too afraid
of pain and the risk of dying? And the responsibility of it all,
life or death for himself, his ship, and his crew, would rest
finally on his shoulders. He sighed. It was a lot to ask of any
man.

“
Sir?” the commander’s reverie ended. His
young first officer, Gregor Lipinski, stood before him like a
tailor’s dummy, back and shoulders stiff and straight, blue eyes
fixed firmly ahead, brown hair and beard at regulation trim. The
man was immaculate from his shiny black boots to the bright silver
triangle with the star pentagram at its centre, the Megran Space
Force insignia stud that joined his jacket collar at the throat.
Lipinski was the perfect example of a career officer, ambitious,
dedicated –
alone.
John Riddick wondered if he too, had seemed like that to
his commanding officer those many years ago.

“Yes, Number One?”

“The shuttle craft with the Trionian
prisoners is approaching, sir. She’s due to dock in about three
minutes.”

“
Very good. Thank you, Number One. Oh, and
tell the helmsman to lay in a course for Megran – wormholes M3 and
T2 -maximum speed. We’ll be leaving Trion’s orbit as soon as the
prisoners are aboard.”

* * *

From darkness into sudden light, the
leviathan warship
Prince Ferdinand
slowed to sub-light speeds. The blur of her shape focused
slowly as the battleship’s eight massive engines reversed their
power. Ahead of her, the multi-hued orb that was the planet Megran
hung in the void.

“Holding Megran orbit now, commander.”

“Good. Thank you, helmsman. You may switch
full control to computer when ready.

The commander leant forward and tapped the
call switch for deck five. The call light flashed amber
once…twice…

“Quartermaster, Sergeant Chiang.” A young
man’s face, Asian in origin, with a full Prince Ferdinand copy
beard, materialized on the screen.

“Ah sergeant, I’ll need you to provide an
armed escort for the Trionian prisoners to the planet surface.”

“Yes sir. Any special instructions,
commander?”

“Yes. Make sure that they are treated with
the utmost respect. Do not leave them until you are satisfied they
are safely incarcerated with the others. And see to it that their
wounded man is looked after.”

* * *

Commander Riddick leaned back into the black
leather comfort of the bridge chair. He could not help the smile of
satisfaction that crept across his face. The old ship had made it
back from Trion to Megran with its cargo of hostages in record
time, its photon engines and hull pushed to their limit.

Now the battleship was to pick up her
squadron. The advance fleet would consist of the battleship, six
cruisers and a dozen or so smaller class vessels, destroyers and
corvettes. The seven cruisers captured from the conquered planets
would join them in due course.