*Billions."
*Is there no way to narrow the search parameters?"
*I don"t know what I"m searching for. They could have encoded this a dozen different ways."
*But why make it difficult?"
*It"s been difficult all the way."
*Not on Arcadia," said Hugar. *You said the final location clue took the searcher straight to the statue. There was no subterfuge. It seems to me that they used the oldest trick in the book. They hid it -"
*- in plain sight. You"re right. You think they did that again?"
Hugar shrugged. *Why not?"
Anneke started to reply, but then stopped. She"d suddenly seen the solution. It was so simple she thought it must be wrong. Completely forgetting Hugar was there, she went to work, a.n.a.lysing the arrangement of the base pair codes using the letters of the Old Empire script.
An hour later she had the coordinates.
She spun round, laughing to find Hugar still there, sitting on a bench, watching. *You were right!" she said.
*Hunches often are."
*All I had to do was look at the sequence of letters used to represent the four basic amino acids and get the computer to search for artificial patterns - much easier than looking for actual messages."
*So you have them. Now what?"
*We send them via n-s.p.a.ce transmitter to josh. He"ll get to work cracking the coded clues to the third and final set. But there"s something we should do first."
*What"s that?"
*Eat."
Hugar swung off the bench. *Excellent idea. I"m starving."
One of Hugar"s aides rushed in half way through the meal. He beckoned Hugar and Anneke to follow him to the bas.e.m.e.nt. There, a large viewscreen showed a harried newsreader.
*News just in confirms eyewitness accounts over the past half hour. Shortly before noon, an M-Cla.s.s dreadnought - an Old Empire Demon long thought destroyed or lost - arrived in orbit above Kanto. High-ranking sources believe the Demon has joined the occupying fleet, though so far no word has come from Commander Nathaniel Brown ..."
The screen cut to close-up satellite-feed of the dreadnought, the same vessel Anneke had boarded in the Scorpius system weeks before.
*My G.o.d, look at the size of that thing," said Hugar, as a smaller s.p.a.ce tug, docked to the dreadnought, slid into frame. The tug was dwarfed, like a barnacle on a whale.
Anneke stared at the screen, white-faced.
*We must hurry," she said. *Brown intends all-out war. The negotiations he"s holding with your government are a facade. He plans to make an example of Kanto."
*Which is why the dreadnought is here."
Anneke"s brow furrowed. *It"s a symbol. A symbol of the Old Empire, of unlimited, ruthless power."
*The ruling party will not listen to us," Hugar said. *They would shoot first and hold discussions afterwards."
Anneke smiled, but her anxiety grew. The dreadnought was a new and unexpected player in a complicated game. Would Brown embroil an entire world in war to gain his own ends?
Based on his track record to date, it would seem so.
Around midnight, the Kantorian s.p.a.ce Fleet launched a pre-emptive strike on Brown"s armada. Some of Anneke"s worries abated while others grew.
It was a bold, brilliant move, utilising two simultaneous attacks, one from the planet"s surface, and the other from a secret base on one of Kanto"s moons.
*There are some advantages to dictatorship after all," mused Anneke, as she watched the battle on screen. Unfortunately, the element of surprise quickly vanished. Brown knew. That was obvious. He"d been expecting an attack. Worse, he"d known about the secret base.
*Someone talked," said Hugar, shrugging.
*Someone always talks."
Suddenly, the screen blinked to a uniform blue. Then the face of Nathaniel Brown appeared, smiling.
*Anneke Longshadow. I presume you are watching, wherever you"re hiding. By now you will be aware of the M-Cla.s.s dreadnought orbiting Kanto. Historically, the M-Cla.s.s vessels - the Demons - were designed to destroy planets by setting off a critical chain reaction in then-s.p.a.ce lattice that allows the planet to exist as a quantum ent.i.ty. This weapon was so fearsome that it maintained the Old Empire"s grip on the galaxy for more than a thousand years." He paused. Shivers ran down Anneke"s spine. *At this moment, the planet-destroying weapon on board this ship is pointed at Kanto. An empty boast? Well, how about a demonstration? Let"s say noon tomorrow. If I don"t have the second set of lost coordinates in my hands by then, I will destroy Kanto. All of it."
BLACK paced back and forth. He"d heard nothing from Anneke Longshadow. None of his ground forces or the co-opted Kantorian police had found a trace of her. He hadn"t expected them to. RIM trained its agents better than that.
He peered through the forward screen at Kanto Kantoris. From here, on the bridge of the dreadnought in high orbit, the planet was a whirl of reds and browns and olive greens, overlaid with ragged white slashes where stratospheric clouds laddered the land beneath.
I wonder what it will look like when I blow it up, Black wondered. A world coming apart.
Black became aware of a presence and turned to find the Envoy watching him, his alien face as inscrutable as the day they had first met.
Black covered his unease at the alien"s presence with brusqueness. *What is it now? Another glitch?" The Envoy never reacted. Stepping closer, he merely said, *The weapon is online."
*It"ll work? You"re sure about this?"
*I am sure."
*Good. Now all we need is to hear from Longshadow. And sooner rather than later."
*She is here."
Black blinked. *Here? What do you mean, "here"?"
*She came through the portable jump-gate five minutes ago, heavily shielded, and bearing the white hand."
Black stared. The *white hand" was an ancient request for truce and parley, the requesting party literally painting their right hand white. Even Black would not break such a tradition with treachery, so ancient and girded by superst.i.tion was the custom.
*What are you waiting for? Show her in."
Ten minutes later Black sat facing Anneke Longshadow, his nemesis. Her right hand was indeed white and, as the custom required, she kept it in sight at all times. Sitting there, straight, proud and undaunted, he tried to read her. Tired as she was, the life of a fugitive did not lend itself to peaceful rest, nor trust in those who watched over you.
*Well, here we are," he said. *Face to face once again."
*And still not a morgue in sight."
*Speaking of which, if I do not get the coordinates within the next two hours, then not only will a morgue be in demand, but a large one will be needed."
*Even you wouldn"t destroy an entire planet." Black frowned. *Really? In what way have I changed your low opinion of me?"
Anneke tapped her hardened fingernails against the onyx-plate desk. *You forget that I have visited this derelict. It doesn"t have the capacity to destroy worlds."
*Past tense, I"m afraid. You forget that I have the Envoy. Interesting species," said Black, sitting back, enjoying himself *Caretakers, they call themselves. Stewards. Look after all sorts of things. Lost artefacts, abandoned lore, ancient knowledge - including arcane power systems long forgotten. Of course, such knowledge isn"t of much use unless you have the hardware to interface it with, but that"s where the dreadnought comes in, isn"t it?"
The Envoy leant forward and handed Anneke an e-pad. *The specifications of the interfacing are there. I a.s.sure you the weapon is operational."
Black watched Anneke flick through the e-pad"s pages. She faltered and grew pale. Finally, she looked up, bleak but not beaten.
*I"ll consider your request." She stood up.
*Consider it quickly," said Black, out of patience. The Envoy led her back to the jump-gate then quickly returned.
*We need a demonstration," Black said. *Let"s destroy Pelas."
An hour later, a smart-fusion bomb peeled off from Black"s flagship and dropped into a lower orbit from where it circled the planet, before dive-bombing Kanto"s second largest city, Pelas.
Black listened to the radio frequency used for official planet-wide broadcasts. He heard a last minute squawk as top officials learnt too late what was coming their way.
Moments later, Pelas - a city of two million - turned into a glowing mushroom-cloud and the radio-speaker filled with harsh static.
But within minutes, Black"s flagship - which floated two klicks from the dreadnought and in line of sight - flashed into momentary incandescence, then disappeared into the backdrop. This was followed by the fiery destruction of six more ships in quick succession and serious. .h.i.ts on twenty more of his fleet.
He couldn"t believe it. They were under attack. Black scurried into his weapons control seat and strapped on a neural interface. The Envoy hurried in with a security detail. It was Black"s oversight. After the failed Kantorian attack and the destruction of the entire Kantorian s.p.a.ce fleet, he had allowed security to lapse, believing the world below could no longer mount a credible threat.
He"d been right.
But he hadn"t reckoned on Anneke Longshadow, and her advanced technology.
*Where are they?" Black snapped at the Envoy, who was manning the tactical console.
*I"m scanm.ng. *
*Scan faster!"
*I have them." Black wondered if there was an element of admiration in the Envoy"s voice, but he knew better. *They"re using two-man fighters, barely larger than escape pods."
Already knowing the answer, he asked, *Why didn"t we see them coming?"
*They are using advanced stealth shielding. It has a RIM signature, but I have not seen it before."
*Well, touche for Anneke Longshadow. Have you deduced an attack pattern?"
*They are locking directly onto the target ship and attaching explosive devices before pushing off again. Their shielding drops only for the few seconds when in contact with the ship about to be destroyed."
Black raised an eyebrow. *You"re telling me you don"t know where they are in between shield drops?"
*Correct."
Black stared out at the star-flecked s.p.a.ce and the armada he had ama.s.sed, two hundred ships in all. As he watched, twelve more ships flared like tiny supernovae then ceased to exist.
Then mayhem ensued.
Believing communications were down, the remaining captains, spooked by the silent conflagrations, let loose an awesome volley of undirected deadly fire. In no time, more than thirty ships had been hit by their allies. Several detonated spectacularly, with others lurching out of orbit like wounded whales, drifted down towards the planet and ultimate doom.
Black flicked on the general comm frequency for his ships. *Cease fire immediately!" he snarled. The volleys subsided, though not immediately. Odd unsettling sounds started emanating from all frequencies, designed, no doubt, by RIM psychologists to unnerve the toughest warrior.
Psychological warfare, thought Black. Two can play at that.
*When I give the word, I want the alpha shields up," Black told the Envoy. *Then we will flood the intervening s.p.a.ce with an inverse magnetic field, map the results and run likeliest trajectories for the source of the attacks."
The Envoy complied, pa.s.sing the order.
*Now!" Alpha shields, instantly recognisable from their n-s.p.a.ce discharges, enveloped every ship in the armada bar a dozen, which had sustained damage. Together, every shielded ship emitted the required magnetic field.
Instantly, thirty-six dots - two-man ships - appeared on the tactical overlay of the forward screen. *Target enemy vessels and fire!"
A barrage of high-energy pulses turned the empty s.p.a.ce between the ships into a lattice of deadly beams. In quick succession, a dozen tiny plumes of fiery light blossomed in what appeared to be empty s.p.a.ce.
A concerted cheering came from the linked armada communicator.
*So much for Anneke Longshadow"s -" Black stopped, sensing a faint vibration deep in the floor plating. He opened his mouth to speak.
Then the dreadnought lurched sideways and the lights went out.
Black flipped his infrared eyepiece and leapt out of his chair. *She"s here," he said to the Envoy. *On board." He s.n.a.t.c.hed up a shield-generator belt, strapped it on, grabbed a vibroblade and a blaster and headed aft. Attached to the belt was a sensor interfacing with the ship"s spatial sweeps. Official crew showed up as green dots. Intruders as red.
There were no red dots.
Black"s internal sensors, the software he was born with and had honed through countless dangerous ventures, blared at him.
ANNEKE"s tiny craft, in stealth mode, had locked onto the underbelly of the dreadnought like a limpet mine. She had come alone, despite a battalion of volunteers, including Pagin who, being small, had insisted with a lopsided logic that he would be less detectable by Brown"s sensors.
Stifling a laugh, Anneke thanked him with as much adult sincerity as she could. She was relieved when Hugar came to her rescue, agreeing that Pagin, an orphan without ties, could accompany him in his attack pod.
*You speak truly?" Pagin asked, eyes wide. When Hugar nodded, Pagin let out an ear- splitting whoop, and then shut up just as quickly when Hugar frowned at him.
Anneke waited several long minutes. If she were to be detected, then this would be the time, though once locked to the hull she had, in a way, become part of the dreadnought and was theoretically invisible to its sensors.
The main attack would begin in ten minutes. By then she needed to be back on board and ready. When nothing had happened after five minutes she breathed out and checked her watch.
She deployed a landing track and moved the pod into gear, trundling it along upside down beneath the dreadnought, heading for its rear starboard torch tube. This tube, from which the chaotic field energies that drove the ship through s.p.a.ce-time erupted, led directly into the bowels of the ship - just where she wanted to go. An unorthodox approach - not unlike inserting a suppository up an a.n.a.l ca.n.a.l - it offered the best chance of her entering the ship without setting off alarms.