‘We’ll have to assume that, yes,’ Jules replied. ‘And automatic stunners – or worse, blasters. Gas maybe, or triggered bombs. But the Head gambled his life on a lot less than we know now, so bring up your shields and high-powers and burn the damned thing down.’
Fortunately, the corridor that led up to this blank wall was a very wide one, fifteen meters from side to side. Heavy armored shields were brought down to protect the assailants from automatic blaster beams.
Jules and Yvette and the team of d’Alembert weightlifters and wrestlers- led by their cousin Rick once more – all donned spacesuits to protect them from any gas that might be released. Then they brought into play the special heavy -duty blasters to cut through the wall that faced them.
Slowly, centimeter by centimeter, the unbelievable fury of those beams ate through the twenty-centimeter thick plating in front of them. When the cutting was through, that heavy wall of metal fell inward onto a steel floor, producing a crash that rattled the teeth of the SOTS agents and shook the very bedrock upon which Castle Englewood was built.
The collapse of that wall revealed a brightly lit room behind it where, seated around a small table, was a squad of ten DesPlainian weightlifters – Grand Duke Nicholas’ last line of defense.
One glance was all the attackers had time for, though, because at the same instant that the wall fell everyone in the tunnel-guards and SOTS operatives alike-were yanked to the floor with a force the likes of which none of them bad ever experienced before.
‘Ultragrav!’ Jules gasped as the wind was knocked from his lungs when he hit the smooth floor. And indeed it was; the toppling of the wall had turned on the final protective device, a totally unexpected one.
The entire corridor was now experiencing an artificial gravitational field of some twenty-five gravities. Jules and Yvette, who felt quite comfortable at three gees and could get around without too much hindrance at six or seven, were pinned flat to the ground, helpless as babies. They could barely lift a forger to help themselves.
Imminent danger threatened. Their own shield, set up to protect them from blaster fire, now held them in deadly peril. It had not been meant to stand up under such extreme conditions, and was wobbling visibly. If it fell backwards onto them, the people it had been meant to protect would be smashed to a thin layer of ooze on the tunnel floor. ‘Shield!’ Jules gasped out in warning.
Rick had seen the danger, too. Unlike Jules and Yvette, he was a trained wrestler; the muscles in his body had been specially toughened to supernormal strength. Thus, while the ultragrav was crippling to him as well, he was at least able to move. With a feeble lurch, he pushed his body forward against the shield. That one slight push was all that was needed in a gravitational field as strong as this; the armor plating toppled forward with a bang that jolted everyone’s bones.
‘Nice,’ Yvette complimented him through gritted teeth. ‘Now, can you get those other guys before they get us?’
We’re working on it,’ Rick said hoarsely of his team, and they were.
If the situation had not been life-and-death it would actually have been comic to watch those hundred- and-fifty kilogram brawlers, each one muscled to put an Atlas to shame, exerting every iota of their tremendous strength to such puny results: first to get up onto their knees and then to lift, using all the strength of both arms, a two kilogram weapon up into some kind of firing position. Unfortunately, one of the Grand Duke’s guards a giant even for a DesPlainian weightlifter – made it before any of the d’Alemberts. His first blast went straight through the man on Jules’ left, who had managed to reach his knees.
The man screamed and collapsed very quickly.
The next blast hit Jules, who was still pinned flat, just below his left knee. He screamed with agony as a fist-sized chunk of skin was burned out of his calf, then passed out completely from the pain. The blood, being pulled out of the wound by a force many times stronger than normal, flowed copiously.
Yvette watched her brother’s injury-with horror, and reacted as quickly as she could under the circumstances. Within a field of twenty-five gees, the blood would be drained from even a small wound very rapidly unless something were done to stop it. Jules could literally bleed to death in a matter of seconds. Drawing strength from she knew not what reserve, she pulled herself around to face his leg.
There were two principal methods recommended in her first aid classes for stopping bleeding – applying direct pressure on the wound and elevating it to make it harder for the blood to flow out. The pressure method was out: it was impossible for her to lift her arm enough to bring it down on top of his leg. By scraping her arm along the ground, however, she was able to get it under her brother’s leg, thus lifting it a little off the ground. Even that little bit was enough to do the trick, though, for the twenty-five gee field was now working in her favor; it pulled the blood downward and reduced the outward flow to a mere trickle.
Because Jules was unconscious and Yvette was otherwise occupied, neither of them saw any more of the action for the next several minutes. If they had, however, they would have been very proud of their relatives. Only that one guard had been able to beat any of the d’Alemberts into action. Rick d’Alembert did not wait to get to his feet to fire his blaster; he shot from a prone position. Soon the air was filled with blaster beams as DesPlainians on both sides managed to squeeze off shots. In the ensuing awkward, slow-motion battle eighteen men died – ten of them being the Grand Duke’s last guards. Then, with the opposition gone, the d’Alemberts had o nly the gravity to contend with. Step by leaden step, Rick pulled his way along the wall into the guard’s room. His brain was foggy and his eyes were not focusing properly, but he did manage to find the ultragrav controls. The next instant, he had restored the tunnel to one Earth gravity – light by his standards, but he was thinking of Jules and two other wounded men.
The instant the ultragrav let up, Yvette gulped in a few deep breaths of air, then ripped the shirt off the dead man on the other side of her brother. She held that compress in place until the flow of blood had abated, then tied it on the burn with a bandage. The wound was a ghastly one, but she was sure that Jules would be able to recover from it.
Rick had fainted after his tremendous exertion in turning off the ultragrav, but fortunately his special strength was no longer needed. The regular army and Service agents could handle the job from this point. In the opposite wall, behind the ruins of the table where the guards had sat, was a large steel vault. The attackers made no attempt to unlock it; such niceties no longer counted at this stage of the game.
Demolition experts brought up their shields and sandbags and blew the face of the vault to bits. They removed the debris, ransacked the interior – and found a scroll rolled up on the topmost shelf.
Hearts in their throats and scarcely daring to breathe, the people who had done so much of the fighting up until now looked on while the handwriting and documentation experts had their turn at center stage. They scrutinized the parchment in minute detail and subjected it to every test they could manage on their portable equipment. ‘This is the genuine Patent,’ the chief examiner announced finally; and in the joyous clamor that followed even the dead were for the moment forgotten.
The rest of the operation went so smoothly as to be almost anticlimactic. At a single code word from the major in charge of the Castle Englewood invasion, the full regiment of Imperial Guards sealed the Imperial Palace tighter than a mailed list. The Navy assigned two dozen ships to fly in formation over Moscow and create an umbrella impervious to attack. A special team of couriers was dispatched from Castle Englewood to the Imperial Palace, carrying with it the notorious Patent. The instant that was delivered safely into the hands of the Empress Pro Tem, Fleet Admiral Armstrong himself led a company of space marines into the Grand Ballroom and broke up the party by placing Grand Duke Nicholas and his entire retinue under immediate arrest for treason.
The Grand Duke was taken at once to the Pacific Island to confront the Emperor himself. As Stanley Ten watched, his own personal physician administered the nitrobarb to his long-unrecognized half-brother. Then Zander von Wilmenhorst came forward to conduct the intensive questioning that the situation required. Slowly but surely, the full story emerged.