March Upcountry

was a crow of delight from Tactical.

“There she blows!” the sublieutenant shouted. The Saint cruiser had come apart under the hammer of the missiles, without even having come to grips at energy weapon range.

“Put us back on course for the planet—and shift to Evasion Able Three!” Krasnitsky snapped to the helmsman. “We’re not out of the woods yet. There are still incoming missiles.”

“Yes, Sir,” Segedin agreed with a triumphant grin. “But we still got her!”

“Yes, we did,” Talcott whispered so quietly that only Krasnitsky could hear. “But what about her mate?”

The tac officer shut down the guidance channels to the remainder of the offensive missiles and shunted all the processor power they’d been using to the defenses. Then he picked up half the defensive net and waded in. Between the added processor power, the loss of the cruiser’s support, and the addition of Segedin’s experience, the remainder of the missiles were quickly shredded. All that was left, for the time being, was to pick up the pieces.

“So that’s it, Your Highness,” Captain Krasnitsky finished, looking up from the pad in his hand. His skin suit was sealed, and the orange vacuum warning light behind him was clearly visible. “We used less than half our missiles in this engagement, but the other cruiser has already broken orbit and is accelerating towards us. We’ll drop your shuttles in two hours, and it will take us longer than that to get patched up and restore pressure again. So I would suggest that you stay where you are, Your Highness.”

“Very well, Captain,” the prince said. He was aware that all the captain was seeing was the distorted ball of his powered armor’s helmet-visor, and he was just as glad. He was beginning to understand why DeGlopper had to, effectively, commit suicide, but he was still uncomfortable with it.

Pahner’s company, at least, were official bodyguards for the Imperial Family, with the tradition of taking rifle beads to protect their charges; “catching the ball” as it was called. But the company’s personnel had to survive—some of them, at least—if they were to accomplish their mission of keeping him alive; DeGlopper’s entire crew had to die to do that. Spoiled he might be, but not even Roger MacClintock was immune to the sense of guilt that produced. Yet nothing in Krasnitsky’s tone or attitude suggested that he had ever even considered any other course of action. In the captain’s place, Roger suspected that he might be thinking about how . . . convenient it would be if something happened to remove the prince from the equation. After all, if Roger were dead, there would be no reason for Krasnitsky’s remaining crew to die to save him, now would there? Somehow, the fact that Krasnitsky and all of his people seemed totally oblivious to that glaringly logical point only made him feel guiltier.

“I suppose we’ll talk again before separation,” he said after a moment, awkwardly. “Until then, good luck.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” the captain said with a tiny nod. “And good luck to you and the Company, as well. We’ll try to do the DeGlopper name proud.”

The communications screen blinked out, and Roger leaned back and turned to Captain Pahner. The Marine had doffed his helmet and was scratching his head vigorously.

“Who was DeGlopper, anyway?” the prince asked, fumbling with the controls and latches of his own helmet.

“He was a soldier in the American States, a long time ago, Your Highness,” Pahner said, cocking his head at the angle Roger had begun to recognize as a subtle sign that he’d stuck his foot in it. “There was a plaque right outside the cabin you were in, listing his medal and the citation for it. He won their equivalent of the Imperial Star. When we get back to Earth you can look up the citation.”

“Oh.” Roger pulled the pin and let his hair down so that it cascaded across the back of the armor, then scratched his scalp with both hands at least as vigorously as Pahner. “We weren’t in these things all that long. What makes your head itch so badly?”

“A lot of it’s psychosomatic, Your Highness,” Pahner said with a snort. “Like that itch between your shoulder blades.”

“Agggh!” Roger rolled his shoulders as well as he could in the constricting armor and squirmed, trying to rub his back against the internal padding. “You would have to mention that!”

Pahner just smiled. Then he frowned ever so slightly.

“Can I make a suggestion, Your Highness?”

“Yesss?” Roger replied doubtfully.

“We’re not going anywhere for two hours. I’m going to go roust out the troops and tell them they can undog their helmets and do a little stretching. Give them about a half-hour, and then come down and talk to a few of them.”

“I’ll think about it,” Roger said dubiously.

He did, and his thoughts didn’t make him all that happy.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Chaplain Pannella placed his hands behind his back and sniffed.

“Lord Arturo isn’t going to be happy,” he observed.

Captain Imai Delaney, skipper of the Caravazan Empire parasite cruiser Greenbelt, refrained from snarling at the ship’s chaplain. It wasn’t the easiest restraint he’d ever exercised, and it got even harder as he looked around and recognized his bridge officers’ stunned disbelief. He drew a deep breath and wiped his face. They’d obviously gotten sloppy, and “not happy” was a very pale description of what Lord Arturo would be when he heard about this one.

At the same time, he understood exactly how it had happened. There had been no problems at all since the two parasites had been put on station, and they were mainly there to make sure that no one noticed the Saint presence in the system. They’d let a few transports—the ones with registered schedules—through and taken a few of the tramps as prizes. But their primary job wasn’t commerce raiding; it was supporting the tactical operations that were being staged through the system, and it had become routine. Too routine.

“It’s a Puller–class transport,” the tactical officer reported as he studied his readouts. “There was one flash of nearly full power. They’re masking their drive, somehow, but that flash was clear.”

“Why would the Earthies send in a single armed transport?” the chaplain demanded. “And why is its acceleration so low?”

The captain decided that screaming would probably be unwise, however tempting. The answer to both questions was obvious, but if he simply stated them bluntly he might be accused of “insufficient consideration” for the chaplain’s feelings and opinions. As if a chaplain should have a voice in military matters!

He looked around the bridge. His officers’ uniforms were the somber and slightly off-color tones that bespoke preparation in low-acid processes. The textiles were all natural, too . . . which meant that unlike in most navies, if there was a sudden shipboard fire the crew was subject to immolation.

Captain Delaney had been aboard an Empie parasite cruiser once. The bridge had been all cool tones and smoothly rounded edges; on his own ship, the edges were jagged and unfinished. Finishing and “trim” were considered unnecessary frills. Unnecessary frills used excess energy. Excess energy, eventually, was bad for planetary environments. So, no trimming for Greenbelt’s bridge.

The same philosophy extended throughout the ship. Everything looked rough hewn and badly fitted. Oh, it worked. But it wasn’t as smooth as it would have been aboard a damned Empie warship. Nothing was . . . not even the command relationships. On an Empie ship, the captain was king. He might be under the command of an admiral, but on his own ship he was lord and master.

On the Saints’ ships, though, the chaplain always had to be considered. Adherence to the tenets of the Church of Ryback was as important, to the higher-ups, as capability. So besides fighting the damned aristos for command slots, Captain Delaney had been fighting the Church for his entire career.