Having got rid of Glinderen, Maury remarked to one of his chief lieutenants, “The more I hear of it the better this Empire looks.”
“Tricky stuff to fool with,” said his lieutenant uneasily.
Roberts listened alertly.
“Yes,” said Maury, “but they’d ransom that king.”
“Get our head in a sling if—” Maury’s lieutenant paused. “But if they made trouble, we’d kill the king, right?”
“Right. And he’s down there with just two ships. Get the latest on that convoy. It’s already had a five-day delay at R&R XII-C. If we stick around waiting for it, we’ll be here when the Space Force comes through after this king. If we grab him first, then if he’s real, we get the ransom. If he’s fake, we take over his racket, whatever it is.”
Hammell said shakily, “Boy, that’s all we need.”
Morrissey, at the want-generator, said “Now what?”
“Maury,” said Hammell, “is coming down here with his fleet of commerce raiders to grab ‘the king’ for ransom.”
Roberts smiled the smile of the angler when the fish takes the worm. “Yes, and that gives us our chance.”
“How?” demanded Hammell. “Maury may not be as tough as the Space Force, but he’s next best.”
“Yes, but if this preliminary bout with Maury turns out right, maybe the main event with the Space Force will get canceled.”
“How do you figure that?”
“If we aren’t here, there isn’t much the Space Force can do to us.”
“Meaning, if we run for it—”
“No. In that case, the situation is open-and-shut. We’re guilty, and our story is a fake.”
“Then, how—”
“If we disappear—If Maury is seen to capture us—”
“Then Maury’s got us! How does that help?”
“Suppose the sequence of events goes like this: Maury attacks. After a stiff fight, he is seen to haul us into his ship on a gravitor beam. He leaves. The Space Force arrives. Beforehand, naturally, we’ve destroyed any identifying marks on the yacht. All the Space Force has to go on is that Maury swallowed us up, and then Maury vanished. Now, on that basis, who can prove anything about anything?”
Morrissey was nodding enthusiastically. “It’s not foolproof, of course, but—”
“Not foolproof!” said Hammell. “Ye gods! Look, Maury captures us and then disappears. How do we get away from Maury?”
Roberts said irritatedly, “Obviously, he never captured us in the first place.”
“You just said—”
“He is seen to haul our ship in on a gravitor beam. That’s how it looks. Our ship disappears into his larger ship, and his ship, and his fleet, then leave. That’s the appearance. But what actually happens is we capture him.”
Hammell’s eyes widened.
“We use our gravitor beam,” said Roberts, “and once in Maury’s ship, you and I get out, in battle armor, while Morrissey beams ‘desire for peace’ at Maury and his crew. We’ll be drugged against the effect of the want-generator. We put it to Maury, do as we say or else. Then, if necessary, Morrissey beams ‘desire to obey’ at the rest of Maury’s fleet as Maury orders them to leave. Bear in mind, Maury is out to capture us. He won’t attack to kill.”
“Hm-m-m,” said Hammell. “That does seem to provide a natural explanation for everything. What Maury thinks, of course, won’t match what everyone else thinks—but he won’t be in any position to do anything about that.”
Morrissey nodded. “It’s risky. But it does give us a chance.”
“I’m for it,” said Hammell.
“Now,” said Roberts, “it’s just a question of working out the important details—”
Maury’s commerce raiders came out of the asteroid belt like no Space Force fleet ever flown, each separate chief keeping his own ships of whatever size and class together.
The two-day wonder went to work at once:
“By order Space Force Sector H.Q., Lieutenant General Bryan L. Bender Commanding, this Force is directed to proceed to the planet Boschock III, and there establish formal relations with the representatives of the political entity known as The Empire.”
The patrol ship was prompt to reply: “By command of His Royal and Imperial Majesty, Vaughan the First, surnamed The Terrible, this planet is inviolate soil, bounden into the fiefdom of His Majesty as Duke of Trasimere, and thereby into the Empire. You enter here at your own instant and deadly peril.”
The two-day wonder lifted his chin heroically: “The Space Force has its orders. We can do no less than our duty.”
The patrol ship headed directly for the onrushing fleet.
Hammell uneasily watched the battle screen. “That’s a lot of ships.”
“Yes,” said Roberts, “but dead kings don’t bring much ransom.”
Maury’s fleet closed in, and a new, more oily voice spoke up: “Certainly we of the Space Force do not have the slightest desire to do any harm to the most sacred person of your king. We are prepared to do whatever we can to accommodate these differences and smooth relations between our separate nations and viewpoints. We suggest that a meeting be held immediately following the landing—”
The patrol ship interrupted: “Following the landing, nothing will remain for you but penance in hell.”
In quick succession, two gravitor beams reached out to grip the patrol ship.
In instantaneous reply, dazzling shafts of energy reached out from the patrol ship, to leave bright explosions in the distance.
An “asteroid” towed by two massive high-thrust ships, was now cut loose, and reached out with a narrow penetrating beam aimed at the patrol ship’s reaction-drive nozzles.
The patrol ship deflected that, and two searing bolts of energy struck the massive asteroid, which was not visibly affected. There was a faint rumble as a missile dropped free from the patrol ship. There was another rumble, and another.
More of Maury’s ships methodically lanced out with fusion beams aimed at the reaction-drive nozzles. While the patrol ship could frustrate each attempt, the response was taken account of in the next try, the individual blows woven together to create a net in which the patrol ship’s efforts grew rapidly more constricted. This was happening so fast that to Roberts it appeared to be a blur of dazzling lines on the battle screen, leading to one obvious result, until suddenly the patrol ship was caught, its own fusion beams deflected harmlessly by the combined space-distorters of the commerce raiders—
—And then, in rapid succession, dazzling bursts of light sheared an enormous chunk from the asteroid, while others knocked out four of Maury’s ships.
Roberts blinked.
The patrol ship’s missiles had somehow gotten through, completely undetected.
The auxiliary screen, still transmitting the scene in Maury’s headquarters on an ultrafast rebuilt cruiser, showed the commerce raiders’ consternation. But then the patrol ship swerved crazily, and swerved again.
“Got it!” growled Maury, mopping his brow.
From the patrol ship, fusion bolts lanced out in all directions, striking two of Maury’s ships apparently by sheer chance. A missile blew up short of the mark, shot-holing another of his ships with flying bits and fragments.
Cursing, Maury’s gunners reported that neither they nor their battle computers could keep up with the patrol ship’s movements. They couldn’t predict whether a hit would be crippling or deadly.
“Aim to miss,” snarled Maury. “As long as they don’t know we’re doing it, it won’t matter.”
Firing furiously, with an inferno of attack around it, the patrol ship withdrew toward Paradise, spun down through the atmosphere, and by a remarkable last-minute feat of piloting, set down in only a moderately hard landing outside the Barons Council Hall.
A roboid policeman immediately rushed out, to guard the ship. From all directions in the Inner City, roboid police began racing to the scene.
“O.K.,” said Maury. “Lay smoke.”
A series of missiles streaked through the atmosphere, landed within several hundred yards of the downed patrol ship, and exploded in enormous clouds of dirty gray smoke.
The inrushing roboid police slowed abruptly.
“Landing ships down,” said Maury.
Four big ships dropped fast through the planet’s atmosphere, to disappear in the boiling uprush of smoke.
“Landing teams out,” said Maury.
Roberts depressed a communicator switch. “Kelty—open fire!”
The roar reached Roberts only faintly through the patrol ship’s hull, but listening critically, Roberts was grateful not to be on the receiving end of the city’s rapid-fire guns at short range. He gripped the controls. “Cease fire five seconds.”
The firing died away.
The patrol ship burst up through the smoke. “Morrissey—”
“Ready.”
“Coordinates—”
As Roberts flashed toward the ultrafast cruiser that was Maury’s headquarters, suddenly the symbols on the battle screen seemed to multiply. At the same instant, Maury’s fleet broke into individual squadrons racing in all directions. Maury’s headquarters ship exploded, and out of the fragments shot a streak that dwindled to a speck before Roberts realized what had happened.
Then the outside viewscreen changed its scale, and showed the whole scene shrunk down to small size.
From the distance, a sizable fleet approached, its ships precisely positioned for mutual support. Before this fleet, like startled fish, the commerce raiders dispersed in all directions. Already moving off the edge of the screen was the chief commerce raider of them all, his escape ship pouring on acceleration as it streaked for the nearest break-point to some quiet hideout far from trouble.