Treasure Of The Stars rb-29 Read online

  «None.»

  «All right. Get to work.» The Cargo Chief's voice had the weary tones of a man who's worked long hours with little help and less pleasure. Blade had an image of the man sitting at a littered desk, red-eyed with fatigue, uniform rumpled, trying desperately to keep track of the cargoes pouring aboard Dark Warrior.

  Blade pulled on a jacket over his coveralls and turned to the boarding party with a broad grin on his face. «All right, you people,» he said, forcing a growl into his voice. «You heard the man. Get to work!»

  Laughing, the boarding party began gathering up their equipment and pulling on their own jackets. Blade turned back to the pilots and looked up through the canopy. It gave him a good view of Bay Two, a steel box large enough to hold a fair-sized office building. In all that vast cavern he could see only one human figure, a spacesuited welder busily at work on the railing of a catwalk two hundred feet above Blade.

  If the rest of Dark Warrior was as nearly deserted, the job of hiding and staying hidden might be almost easy.

  Only two men passed by while the boarding party was unloading. Both were middle-aged, wearing rumpled coveralls and harried expressions. They looked like clerks, cooks, or something else equally uninspiring. They passed by without more than a casual glance at the boarding party.

  In half an hour the shuttle was unloaded. All the legitimate cargo was properly stowed away in 55GZ, and all the other cargo was divided up into man-sized loads. Each member of the boarding party took up one load. Then Riyannah led them off to find a quiet hiding place among Dark Warrior's maze of empty cabins.

  Blade, two of the engineers, and the two shuttle pilots stayed behind. Wishun, the senior engineer, was a gray-haired, stooped man with a perpetually sour expression. He'd lost his wife to Chard's Security people, but he'd retained his own status in the space program by publicly repudiating her. He'd done it for the sake of the underground, but the pain still showed in his face. The other engineer, Draibo, was young, blond, bearded and with an almost childlike enthusiasm for spaceflight and all that might come from it. He had no enthusiasm whatever for Loyun Chard.

  Both engineers were scheduled to be part of the ship's flight crew, so their presence would make no one suspicious. The shuttle pilots were to stay until after Station Four was blown up, then wait to see how the enemy reacted. They were as respectable as the engineers and shouldn't be suspected of anything.

  Blade was the only odd man out. He was the leader of the whole effort, not to mention the eyes, ears, and messenger for the hidden boarding party. He had to stay in the open, even at some risk. They'd minimized the risk by giving him a more complete set of fake ID's than the others. He was nominally a Sergeant-Major Kumish Dron, newly-appointed aide and bodyguard to the engineers. Both of them were senior enough to be allowed to bring staff members along with them, so no one was likely to question Blade's presence. He only hoped the other engineers, officers, and VIP's wouldn't do the same. Too many passengers and hangers-on could crowd even Dark Warrior enough to smoke the boarding party out of hiding.

  The engineers were assigned quarters, then lay down to catch up on their sleep while Blade, like a good servant, unpacked their bags. The quarters were not as luxurious as the VIP suites, which rumor said had private steam baths and wine cellars, plush carpets and perfume dispensers in the air ducts. They were more than comfortable enough for the time they'd be needed.

  Reckoning the time the shuttle landed aboard Dark Warrior as M, it was now M + 3 hours. Station Four should blow skyhigh at M + 8. If nobody changed plans because of that, Dark Warrior should be on her way no later than M + 80. Somewhere around M + 150 she should be within range of the asteroid base. Then the boarding party could come out of hiding and go to work.

  It was going to be a long and tense week, but Blade was too experienced to let any amount of tension affect him seriously. He hoped the boarding party would be able to manage, enduring the same strain without the same experience.

  Blade's mental diary of the next three days ran something like this:

  M + 4-Blade went to sleep, to be reasonably fresh when the news broke about Station Four.

  M + 7-Wishun and Draibo woke him up. Station Four was gone. Apparently the underground had to blow it prematurely. However, there was no sign that anyone suspected anything more than an unusually successful underground attack.

  M + 9-It was officially confirmed over the ship's public address system: Station Four has been overrun and destroyed by the bandit underground. The enemy is being pursued and no quarter will be given. Meanwhile we of Dark Warrior must redouble our efforts, to bring vengeance to the memory of our comrades and glory to Loyun Chard and Targa.

  M + 10-Blade set out to find Riyannah and the rest of the boarding party.

  M + 13-Blade found what he was looking for. It was encouraging that the search took so long. The chances of anyone stumbling on the boarding party by accident appeared to be rather small.

  The sheer size of Dark Warrior was impressive. So was the resources and technical ingenuity put into building her. If the ship hadn't been intended for such evil purposes, it would have been a pity to destroy. Even if she was destroyed and Chard overthrown, the Targans might very well go ahead and build another. They were going to be a force to reckon with in the future of this galaxy and this Dimension, whether the Kananites liked it or not,

  Riyannah explained how she'd chosen the two cabins where the boarding party was hiding. «There's only one corridor approaching us, and we have that watched every minute. If somebody does come, we'll have plenty of time to retreat through the ventilation system. The ducts will easily take a fully-equipped man, and we've got a route all mapped out.»

  «Good work, General Riyannah,» said Blade, and he wasn't entirely joking in calling her «General.»

  M + 14 through M + 50-Waiting, the monotony broken only by periodic reports of the pursuit of the «vile murderers of our comrades of Station Four.» The «no quarter» slogan was a gruesome piece of good luck. If the enemy wasn't going to take any prisoners, they wouldn't be able to make any of the underground talk and reveal Plan Blade.

  M + 52-Dark Warrior's captain decided that the homeless shuttle M 675 and her crew would be temporarily assigned to Dark Warrior and ride along with her. There was a moment of uncertainty for Blade-was the captain going to expect anyone beside the pilots to appear? Apparently not. Having the shuttle aboard meant the survivors of the boarding party, if any, wouldn't have to steal one of the ship's own lifeboats to escape after the battle.

  M + 54-Three shuttles arrived in a bunch and started unloading black-uniformed State Security troops. They moved to quarters near the VIP suites. «It looks as if our passengers are going to join us a little early,» said Wishun.

  M + 60-It was announced that all crew for this mission should now be aboard and assigned quarters and duties. All hands had four hours to deal with personal matters and prepare for a formal review-full-dress uniform for armed forces personnel.

  «We're not only getting our passengers early, it looks as if we're going to be on our way sooner than we expected,» said Draibo.

  «Do you really mind?» asked Blade.

  «Hardly,» said both engineers together. Every hour saved in getting out into space meant one less hour of waiting, one less hour with discovery and disaster possible.

  M + 64-The engineers and the pilots headed for the wardroom, with Blade in his proper place behind them. By the time they got to the wardroom, it was packed with officers and their attendants. A good many of the officers were fully-armed State Security people, rather obviously keeping watch on everybody else. Blade was amused to note that the glowering State Security officers made the regular Targan officers much more nervous than they made him.

  The ventilation system aboard Dark Warrior didn't have all the bugs out of it and the wardroom was packed almost wall to wall. It was already hot and stuffy and it was rapidly getting worse. Blade felt his face turning slimy with sweat and the high col
lar of his dress tunic sagging like a melting ice cream cone. No one else looked much more comfortable, even the State Security officers.

  A whistle blew, then three trumpets sounded, ringing painfully in the closed metal compartment. Someone shouted, «Attention!» and Blade stiffened, right fist clenched on his chest in the formal Targan salute.

  Then the main door of the wardroom opened and a man strode through. He was a large man, taller than Blade, and must have weighed close to three hundred pounds. Much of that weight was sheer fat, but he moved so fast and so smoothly that Blade knew there must be plenty of muscle still buried under the fat.

  The man wore a pearl-gray uniform with blue trim, black leather boots, a gold mesh belt with a holstered laser pistol, and a high-peaked cap dripping with gold lace. On his chest were four rows of medals, with a pilot's wings perched in solitary splendor above them.

  The face above the collar was the most arresting part of the man. Somehow the face had escaped its share of the man's fat. It was thickened, but the harsh lines of the jaw and mouth still showed clearly. The eyes were truly terrifying-large, blue, seeming to look everywhere at once without looking anywhere, the eyes of a man who saw everything and used everything he saw to his own advantage.

  There was no doubt about it. This was a man where self-indulgence and cruelty were strong, but intelligence and ruthless ambition were even stronger. He would grab every bit of power Targa gave him, then reach out to the stars for more.

  Blade would have guessed most of this about the man anyway, but he didn't have to guess. He'd seen too many pictures not to recognize Loyun Chard.

  Chapter 22

  Dark Warrior and her escorts were several hours out into space on the way to the asteroid before Blade could get back to the boarding party and tell them the news.

  The Targans couldn't dance, sing, or cheer. There wasn't room to dance and singing or cheering might be overheard. In any case the expressions on their faces told Blade clearly enough what the new situation meant to them.

  Having Loyun Chard himself aboard Dark Warrior opened the dazzling possibility of not just destroying the man's prize ship but of killing him outright. Like most tyrants he'd carefully avoided picking an heir, for fear the man might become ambitious to take over too soon. In fact he'd used the traditional tactics of playing off his various key supporters against one another. If Chard died aboard Dark Warrior, his supporters would immediately split into several suspicious and hostile factions. Each would control part of the armed forces, but none would have a decisive edge.

  That of course would mean civil war on Targa, but for once the underground people didn't seem to care. Blade's major problem was persuading them not to storm the VIP quarters and try to kill Chard at once. That took another hour of desperate low-voiced argument. If Riyannah hadn't supported him, Blade might not have been able to win the argument.

  «Blade and I want Chard's head as badly as you do,» she said irritably. «Stop accusing us of being weak! It's just that we want to make sure we get it, not throw away our best chance by acting too soon.

  «Consider. Right now we're only a few hours from Targa and there isn't a friendly warship within twenty million miles. The Security black-boys will have all their attention on guarding the leader and they outnumber us three to one.

  «If we attack now, Chard can climb into one of the lifeboats and be safe aboard an escort ship long before we reach him. We'd lose our chance of getting him and maybe even our chance of crippling Dark Warrior. Then she certainly would be used for wiping out the underground's bases!

  «If we stick to the original plan, we'll have a much better chance of getting both Chard and the ship. The Security men will be distracted by the fighting against the patrols. You've said yourself that they're more policemen and executioners than real soldiers or spacemen. We know Chard will be moving around, showing himself to his men as he always does. We may be able to ambush him. Even if he does get off Dark Warrior, there will be Kananite and Menel ships all around us. They may pick him off if we can't.»

  The argument wavered back and forth for a while longer, but eventually the Targans agreed that Blade and Riyannah were right. Plan Blade would go forward on schedule.

  Outside in the corridor, Blade whispered to Riyannah, «Actually I think the engineers, the pilots, and I are the people with the best hopes of getting the bastard. We've got the freedom to move around and the chance to learn his movements. We'll also have the best chance to strike by surprise.»

  «Five of you against Chard and all his guards?»

  «Three, actually. The pilots ought to stay out of the fighting as much as possible and be ready to take us off.»

  «Three people.» Riyannah sighed. «Do you think you have any chance?»

  «Of killing Chard, yes. Of getting out afterward-«He shrugged. «I don't know. And I don't like it any better than you do. But we've got to get Chard.»

  «You think I don't know that?» said Riyannah almost angrily. «I just wish- Oh, I wish a lot of things that aren't possible.» She kissed him. «Good luck and don't get killed if you don't have to.»

  Blade returned to his quarters and sat down with Wishun and Draibo to lay plans. Dark Warrior moved steadily out into space.

  Sixty hours out from Targa, the announcement came.

  «All hands-general call to Battle Stations in five hours.»

  Blade caught a quick meal in the nearest NCO's mess. The two pilots slipped away to join the boarding party. The two engineers stayed in their cabin, too tense to eat. They weren't veterans at this sort of thing, and Blade himself found he had to get the food down a mouthful at a time. He'd never before faced a battle where he had so great a chance of doing something important or so small a chance of coming out in one piece.

  He still went through his preparations with his usual grim professional care. He'd modified a uniform jacket with hidden pouches. Now he dropped four of the small blue grenades into one pouch. Into another he dropped a canister of Targan riot-control gas. It produced violent sneezing, severe nausea, and temporary blindness.

  In the last pouch he put a small hurd-ray pistol with an oversized power cell. He planned to use it on the maximum overload setting. This would use up even a Kananite power cell in a couple of minutes, but it would also produce a lethal beam. Loyun Chard and anyone else who got in its way would be not only dead but disintegrated into smoking chunks.

  Then Blade hung his well-armed jacket on the foot of his bed, lay down, and went to sleep.

  Someone was shaking him. Blade woke up and swung his feet to the floor before he recognized who it was. Wishun was standing by the bed.

  «They've just called Battle Stations,» he said. «Time we were moving.» His face was very pale, but his hands were steady as he pulled on his own jacket.

  «Any reports of attacking ships?» Blade asked.

  «None so far. Do you think-the enemy-have changed their plans?» They called the defenders of the asteroid base «the enemy» to confuse any possible eavesdroppers.

  «They had no way of getting word to us, but I doubt it,» said Blade. «They haven't got many choices.» He stood up. «Let's go.»

  The plan was simple enough, and even gave them a small chance of getting clear afterward. Its timing, though, was at the mercy of Chard's movements. They had to strike while he was in or near the Battle Command Center, watching the opening stages of the attack on the asteroid. That meant they might not be able to synchronize their attack with the boarding party's. It was a risk, but one Blade was willing to run for a chance to kill Chard.

  The corridor to the elevator they were using was nearly empty. Even with nearly four hundred men aboard and most of them on the move, Dark Warrior seemed half-deserted. Blade mentally crossed his fingers, hoping the boarding party could hide for another hour. If they could, there was no way Loyun Chard could escape a stinging defeat.

  Damn it, he didn't just want Chard defeated now! He wanted the man dead! Blade pulled his face into an impassive m
ask and followed the two engineers into the elevator.

  The elevator let them out on the Command Deck. There was a guard post at the entrance to the circular corridor around the Battle Command Center. Blade and the engineers were offering their ID's to the Security man on duty when a gong began sounding urgently.

  «Attention, all hands. Two squadrons of enemy ships are approaching. The escorts are preparing to engage, but they will be within range of us before long. Vengeance for our comrades of Station Four! Glory to our Leader Chard!»

  All Blade's senses we're now as alert as a hunting animal's. The approach of ships from the asteroid base would certainly get the boarding party moving if it was still in hiding. The alarm might be up within minutes and then Loyun Chard would be on the move also, perhaps moving out of their reach. He and the engineers might have to take the first opportunity they had to strike.

  Blade took his ID back from the guard and followed the engineers into the corridor beyond the guard post. It formed a circle a hundred and fifty feet in diameter. Opening off the inner side were six large rooms holding computers and other supporting equipment. In the very center of the circle was the Battle Command Center, fifty feet across and two decks high. Wishun's battle station was in Computer Room One, which also had the main entrance to the BCC. If Chard had to leave in a hurry, he would most likely be coming right past Wishun and Blade.

  Draibo turned off into Fire Control Two, his station. He was supposed to stay there for ten minutes or until he heard firing. If he didn't hear any firing, he was to come over to Computer One and start a brawl with Wishun. From there on things would develop rapidly, and they all hoped successfully.

  Computer One reminded Blade somewhat of the main computer room in the Project's underground complex. Even the finish on the computer consoles was gray and faintly crackled. Nothing was really missing except the sullen gray rock of the walls and Lord Leighton bustling about in his filthy old laboratory coat.