March Upcountry

Freedom, but it’s not. For one thing, the Freedom is a cruiser carrier, not a cruiser. For another, its captain has a Caravazan accent.”

“Saints.” Roger’s mouth felt dry.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Pahner said. He didn’t comment on the obviousness of the conclusion. “Probably,” he corrected. “Whoever they are, the worst-case scenario is Saints. So we assume it’s them.”

“But, Captain,” the prince said, looking at Krasnitsky, “can your ship win against another cruiser?”

Krasnitsky looked around the bridge. Not a hair had twitched, but he knew better than to have that discussion in public.

“Perhaps we should step into the briefing room,” he suggested.

Once the hatch had closed, he turned to the prince. “No, Your Highness. There is zero chance that we can survive taking on two cruisers. We’re not a full-scale Line ship, just a heavily armed and armored transport. Were we at full strength, without damage, maybe. As it is, there’s no chance.”

“So what do we do?” Roger looked from Pahner to Krasnitsky. “We have to surrender, right?”

It was Pahner’s turn to sigh. “That’s . . . not really an option, Your Highness.”

“Why ever not?” Roger asked. “I mean,” he turned to the grim looking Fleet officer, “you’re going to die if you don’t!”

Pahner bit his tongue on a sharp rejoinder, but Krasnitsky simply nodded. “Yes, Your Highness, we will.”

“But why?” Roger asked, his eyes wide in amazement. “I mean, I know it isn’t the proper thing to surrender, but you can’t run, and you can’t win. So why not?”

“He can’t risk their getting their hands on you, Your Highness,” Pahner snapped finally.

“But . . .” Roger began, then stopped to think about it. He pulled his ponytail in frustration. “Why not? I mean, what could they do with . . . with me, for God’s sake? I mean, I could understand if it was Mother, or John, or even Alexandra. But who the heck cares about Roger?” he ended a trifle bitterly. “I don’t know any secrets, and I’m not in immediate line for the throne. Why not turn me over to them?”

The prince’s face hardened with resolution.

“Captain, I insist that you surrender. As a matter of fact, I order you to. Honor is all well and good, but there is a line between honor and stupidity.” He lifted his chin and sniffed. “I will surrender to them myself, with honor. I’ll show them who’s a MacClintock.” The stance would have been improved if there hadn’t been a slight quiver in the pronouncement.

“Fortunately, Your Highness, you’re not in my chain of command,” Krasnitsky said with a wry smile for the bravado. “Major Pahner, I’m going to go get ready for the change in plans. Do you want to try to explain it to him?” With that, he nodded at the prince and left the compartment.

“What?” the prince gasped as the hatch closed behind him. “Hey! I gave you an order!”

“As he said, Your Highness, you’re not in his chain of command,” Pahner said with a shake of his head. “But you might at least thank him for committing suicide, not berate him.”

“There’s no reason for them not to surrender,” Roger said stubbornly. “This is just stupid!”

Pahner cocked his head and looked at the prince darkly.

“What happens if the Saints get their hands on you, Your Highness?”

“Well,” Roger said, thinking about it. “If they tell the Empire, it’s war, or they hand me back over. I suppose they could force a few concessions, but they don’t want a war.”

“And what if they don’t tell the Empire right away, Your Highness?”

“Uhmmmm . . .”

“They can’t tamper with your toot, Your Highness; not with its security protocols. But what about psychotropic drugs?” Pahner tilted his head to the other side and raised an eyebrow. “What then?”

“So I make funny noises and bark like a dog,” Roger scoffed. Until they were finally fully banned, psychotropic drugs had been common at comedy clubs for the terminally humorless.

“No, Your Highness. My guess—and I’m not privy to these sorts of scenarios—but my guess is that they would have you babble all the state secrets that you know to their ‘free and independent’ news services.”

“But that’s the point, Captain Pahner,” Roger said with another laugh. “I don’t know any state secrets.”

“Sure you do, Your Highness. You know all about the Empire’s plans to invade Raiden-Winterhowe.”

“Captain,” the prince said warily, “what are you talking about? Not only are we at peace with Raiden- Winterhowe, but taking them on would be stupid. They’ve got nearly as good a navy as we do.”

“In that case, Your Highness,” Pahner said with another smile, “what about the Empire’s conspiracy to enslave all the alien species we can find and to terraform planets that have been reserved because of their unique flora and fauna?”

“Captain Pahner, what are you talking about?” the prince demanded. “I’ve never heard of any of this! And that sounds like Saint rhetoric. . . .” He stopped. “Oh.”

“Or about how your imperial mother eats fetuses for breakfast, or about—”

“I get the point!” the prince snapped. “You’re saying that if they get their hands on me I’ll be their mouthpiece for all that bullshit they’re always spouting.”

“Whether you want to or not, Your Highness.” Pahner nodded. “And I don’t even want to think about what they’ll do with your big game hunting record. For that matter, it would make the lives of the rest of the Family worth less than a plugged millicred. If they could kill the rest of the Family, that would make you heir.”

“Parliament would impeach me,” Roger said with a bitter laugh. “Hell, Parliament would probably impeach me even if the Saints weren’t putting words into my mouth. Who the hell is going to trust Roger at the controls?”

“It takes two-thirds to impeach, Your Highness,” the captain said darkly.

“Are you suggesting that the Saints could influence a third of Parliament?” Roger was beginning to think he’d stepped through a looking glass and into some sort of weird fantasy universe. There’d always been bodyguards around him, certainly, but no one had ever seriously suggested that he might be a target of another empire’s designs. He’d always assumed that the guards were there mainly for show or to keep off the occasional overly smitten female fan. Now he suddenly realized that what they were there for was . . . sitting on his chest, waiting for the air to evacuate.

“Why?” he asked, quietly, wondering what would make people serve and protect someone that even he didn’t like looking back at him in the mirror.

“Well,” Pahner replied, not understanding the true question, “the Saints want to ensure that humanity doesn’t expand further into uncontaminated worlds. It’s a religion to them.” He paused, unsure how to go on. “I’d assumed that you’d been briefed, Your Highness.”

Actually, it was common knowledge. The Church of Ryback had a few outlets in the capital, all heavily financed by the Saints, and they ran regular commercials. For that matter, it was a common subject for discussion in civics and history classes, which made Pahner wonder about the prince’s education. Asking what the Saints wanted made no sense at all, given that O’Casey had been Roger’s tutor for years and she had a quadruple doctorate in, among other things, history.

“No. No, that’s not what I meant. I meant . . .”

Roger looked into the bleak face of the Marine and realized that this was not a good time to get the question off his chest. And even if he asked it, Pahner—as most people seemed to do when Roger asked questions—would probably just provide some opaque answer that ensured deeper confusion.

“I meant, ‘What.’ What do we do now?”

“We’re going to go for the longshot, Your Highness,” Pahner said, nodding now that the question made sense again. He suspected that something else had gone on in that airhead, but what it had been he neither knew nor particularly cared. There was a mission to perform, and it looked to be a long one.

“We’re going to reload the boats. With the cruiser topside, taking the port by assault is out. So we’re going to have to land on the planet and make our way to the port on foot. We can’t let anyone know we’re there, or they’ll