floor. His arms and legs were trembling with the aftershock, and it took a moment for him
to steady them. That, he decided, was entirely too close.
The job was not finished though, he knew. The robot did not need to breathe, and had
not been “killed” simply by being ejected into space. It was helpless for the moment,
hanging in the void with no means of getting back to the ship, but it was still functioning
and potentially dangerous. He would have to take care of that.
As soon as his legs were steady enough to stand on, he climbed back to his feet and
returned up the ladder to the control room. He checked the gunnery screen, and soon
had the robot lined up in his sights. The scout ship was equipped with short-range
spaceblasters, ‘and Pias made ample use of them. The robot was a very small target for
the aiming computer to zero in on, but four shots were sufficient to blow the robot apart.
That done, Pias turned on the subcom once more and beamed a message back to the
pirate base. “Yes?” Yvette answered cautiously.
“I got it,” Pias said, and went on to describe in detail his fight with the robot.
Yvette was beside herself with joy. “I knew you could do it. I’m proud of you, my brave,
clever husband. That means that all four of Lady A’s robots we know about are
destroyed.”
“Leaving perhaps many more that we don’t know about,” Pias cautioned, trying to keep a
sense of proportion. “It also leaves you alone at the pirate base and me alone out here.
Neither of us can pilot a spaceship, so we’re totally at the Universe’s mercy. Tell me,
what was the robot’s plan in getting me out here’?”
Yvette explained what she and Fortier had learned, that the area where Pias’s ship was
currently floating was booby-trapped, waiting to destroy the Navy ships that blundered
into it.
“We’ve already told the fleet to come on in,” Pias said. “They may be on their way here
this instant.”
Yvette’s face was grim. “They’ll have to be stopped if we’re going to save the fleet and
send them on to reinforce Earth.” “Don’t worry,” Pias said. “You’ve done your job by
warning me about the robot, and Fortier is doing his by warning the near-Earth bases.
Now it’s time for me to do mine by warning the fleet. Never fear, my love, I’ll think of
something.”
But as his wife’s image faded from the screen, he had to admit to himself that he’d
projected more confidence than he truly felt. He made a quick try to raise the fleet by
subcom, but there was no response. As he’d feared, the ships had already gone into
subspace on their way to this rendezvous point. They would be unable to receive subcom
calls again until they materialized here-at which time it would be far too late.
Pias sat for several minutes staring at the complex assemblage of dials, meters, buttons,
knobs, switches and blinking red, green, blue and amber lights that comprised the
instrument panel. He’d seen other people maneuver those controls, but they were a total
mystery to him. That one over there looked as though it might activate the engines; this
set here probably put the ship into subspace; and those switches at the top seemed to
be the directional jets. There were others whose functions he couldn’t even guess at. And
of course, the ship was not equipped with an instruction manual.
“I’ll think of something,” he said to himself under his breath. “But it had better be good
and it had better be fast!”
Chapter 18
The Coronation Day Incursion
While the eyes of the Galaxy were focused on the events at Bloodstar Hall, the Empire’s
fate was actually being contested in space many kilometers away. Lord Admiral
Benevenuto, though he’d been expecting the attack tomorrow rather than today,
nonetheless had all his forces on the alert, ready for signs of trouble-and, while he would
have liked to attend the Coronation himself, he stayed at his post on Luna Base to handle
anything that might come up.
Thus, when the pirate fleet dropped out of subspace into the solar system, he was not
exactly surprised by its appearance. What did startle him, though, was its size. The
attackers were two thousand strong, nearly double the numbers that the information from
SOTE-supposedly obtained under nitrobarb-had led anyone to suspect. “Bozhe moi”‘
exclaimed the admiral under his breath. “It’s a regular armada!”
He had known that his forces would be outnumbered, but not this badly. The
reinforcements that were scheduled to arrive from the faraway bases wouldn’t be here
until tomorrow-and even they would be barely sufficient to counter this much larger force
he was facing.
His first order of business was to mobilize the forces of Earth. Luna Base was suddenly
so alive with bells and sirens that the whole moon seemed to ring with the alarms. Many
of these warning signals had never rung before except during drills-but, as the admiral’s
voice was now informing everyone on the base, this was no drill. War had come to the
Empire, on a scale not seen since the infamous Dukes’ Revolt shortly after the Empire’s
foundation.
Men and women scrambled madly to their battle stations. Security had kept a tight lid on
the knowledge of this attack, and none of them had been expecting anything out of the
ordinary. Many of them, off duty, had been watching the Coronation themselves. Now
some were confused and many were frightened by the startling turn of events, but-in
tribute to their training and dedication-they carried on despite their confusion and their
fear.
Within five minutes of the enemy fleet’s appearance, the advance ships of the Empire’s
forces lifted off the moon on an intercept course. Other ships under Earth’s command, in
orbital positions around the solar system. began converging on a given spot where the
defenders intended to engage their adversaries in the coming battle-a spot well above
the ecliptic plane and as far from Earth itself as could be managed.
The attackers had the advantage of numbers, which also gave them a choice of the
attack formation they would use. As their fleet sailed relentlessly toward the Earth, the
ships clustered together in a large ball, with the smaller ships around the perimeter and
the bigger guns in toward the center.
Odd, thought Benevenuto. That’s a defensive formation, a formation you use when you’re
outnumbered and under attack in open space. It doesn’t make sense here. They’ve got
so many little ships clustered about that they don’t even have room to fire off the big
ones.
Arguments were flying fast and furious through the War Room at Luna Base as the board
of admirals sat around the conference table and watched the three-dimensional
representations floating within the screens. Standard procedure when the enemy
clustered that way was to form the defending ships into a loose-knit globe around the
center, firing in from all angles and pouring as much energy as possible into the cluster’s
heart. Several admirals argued that the Navy should be doing just that, but Benevenuto
demurred. “Let’s stay spread out for now.” he said. “We’ll see if they make their move.”
At Bloodstar Hall, there was a scheduled break in the ceremony during which the
Empress was to have a small snack and refresh herself. She was informed of the attack
at this time, but merely nodded gravely and said, “The Navy will do its job. Meanwhile,
the ceremony will continue as planned.
Edna also took this opportunity to change her outfit, so that when she returned to the
dais she was wearing a more modern long silver gown, heavily jeweled. Over this she
wore her robe of state, and her crown atop her head. Liu appeared beside her, now
wearing a white robe and purple mantle. She presented him with a real sword now,
symbol of his role as her defender, and the two sat side by side through the
proceedings.
Even if her personal presence could have made a difference in the battle. Edna would not
have called a halt in the coronation ceremony that was laboriously grinding its way
through the afternoon. Her facial expressions were kept under rigid control all the way as
the speeches and the formula recitations droned on. She would accept a noble’s oath of
fealty with the graciousness of a born ruler, give that person a half-smile of personal
warmth, and then sit back to await the coming of the next. Most monarchs called the
Coronation the longest day of their lives, and Edna could easily understand why. The
extra tension in her case only made it worse.
She was determined, though, to go through with every last word and gesture of it. We
are all born with our various duties in life, she thought during a lull in the ritual. The men