* * *
“You do realize he’s insane,” Morgana was saying.
“I know,” I said. In spite of everything he had done, I still felt a pang of sympathy for my uncle. This was not the same man who used to ride me on his shoulders around the capitol grounds as a young child or who gave me my first instruction in the sword. Madness had twisted him into someone I barely recognized now.
“But more than just being insane,” I said, “he’s dangerous. And the most frightening part is that, as crazy as it is, his plan could actually work.”
We were sitting at the meeting table in the bridge conference alcove. All of the department heads were present with the exception of Ian who was still working on the maintenance job he had started when we docked. I had just finished recounting what had happened during our meeting with Sebastian and was waiting for my people to give me their reactions.
“You really think this nutty plan of his has a chance?” Lucky asked. He was holding the flatpad Sebastian had given me, casually scrolling through the document on its screen. “It seems so far-fetched.”
“I don’t know about the whole galactic empire thing,” I said, “but he’s definitely causing some serious problems for international economies. Look at the effects the pirate raids have already been having. Prices for everything from food to utilities are at historic high levels. If things continue at this rate, economies everywhere are going to collapse. It’s just a matter of time.”
“So you think he’s actually been able to sell this wild scheme of his to the pirates,” Chris said.
“Actually, I don’t think the pirates give a damn whether he ever becomes the first galactic emperor or not,” I said. “I think they’re in this for the money, plain and simple. As long as he is able to identify rich targets and continues to supply them with the technology to pull off their raids they’ll keep doing his dirty work.”
“Okay, that much I’ll grant you,” Mark said, “but interstellar war? Sneak attacks against unarmed civilian transports are one thing. But even with all of the ships and weapons they’ve stolen, if they try to launch a major offensive against any of the star nations they’re going to get their clocks cleaned.”
“Sebastian’s not planning on sending his ships against anyone’s fleet,” Morgana said.
“You saw it, too,” I said, catching her eye.
Chris looked from me to Morgana and back. “Am I missing something?”
I glanced around the table at the faces of my senior people. Apparently Morgana was the only one who had seen what I’d seen. I turned to Chris. “Did you happen to notice the pair of missile cruisers we passed on our way into the cavern?”
“Sure, but they’re only two ships. You can’t wage a war with just a pair of missile cruisers.”
“Did you take a good look at their hulls?” I prompted.
Chris thought for a moment, then his expression fell as realization dawned. “They still had their Fleet markings.”
“Exactly,” I said. “All they have to do is let someone get a good look at the ships before they launch an attack—”
“And they’ll think Gilead is behind the pirates!” Chris finished.
“Bingo. With tensions as high as they are, that’s all the justification anyone will need to declare war against us.”
“Excuse me, Sir,” Clive interjected, “but even if one of the other nations did decide to go to war with us, Gilead has the largest and best equipped armed forces of any nation. They couldn’t hope to win.”
“I respect your loyalty, Colonel, but even Gilead would be hard pressed to defend itself if we were attacked by several fleets at once. What’s to stop Sebastian from sending those missile cruisers out to attack ships from two, three, or more different nations? And don’t forget, if word spreads that Gilead is the one responsible for the pirate attacks, every kingdom in the galaxy will want a piece of us. Things could end up getting very ugly, very quickly.” It was suddenly quiet around the table as the implications sank in. “If Sebastian is allowed to go through with his plans, billions of people are going to die.”
“And when it’s all over,” Mark said, “he’ll just step in and pick up the pieces. It’s brilliant, sick, but brilliant.”
“It seems like he’s thought of everything,” Chris commented.
“Maybe,” I said. Something about all of these plans within plans was bothering me.
“Okay, I know that look,” Lucky said. “You’ve got a bug up your butt about something. Spill it.”
“One thing isn’t making any sense,” I said. “If it’s always been Sebastian’s plan to grab control of the other kingdoms, why were there attacks on Gilead ships for all those years? Even as far back as when Sebastian was regent, before he tried to have me assassinated, there were regular attacks happening against our ships.”
“If I may, Sire, perhaps he was trying to throw off suspicion,” Max offered. Although Max wasn’t technically what I considered a department head, I welcomed his input. I had learned years ago that he had a keen ability to read people. He was also the only person at the table who had known Sebastian longer than I had myself. “It would have been very suspicious if every nation’s shipping were being attacked except ours. If there is one thing I have observed about the Duke over the years, it is that he is very crafty. He is particularly fond of using misdirection to keep his opponents off balance.”
“Maybe,” I said as I thought about it, “but I’m still having a problem with the whole scenario. The raids on our ships have been causing serious problems with our economy for a number of years. Before I returned and had him removed from power, there was no need for Sebastian to want Gilead’s economy weakened. In fact, for his plan to work, it would have been better for Gilead to maintain a strong economy to support military actions against the other kingdoms. Weakening our economic base would have been counterproductive.”
“Well, we all agree that your uncle isn’t the most stable individual,” Lucky said.
“Sebastian may be insane,” I said, “but there’s still a kind of twisted genius to his plan. We know that his man, Smith, hands out the target assignments. He could easily have arranged for the pirates to raid ships that would only have minor repercussions on our economy. No, that’s not it. We’re missing something.” In my mind I quickly ran through everything I knew about the pirates but couldn’t resolve the conflict.
Eventually I looked over at Doc Jacobs who had been sitting quietly throughout the meeting staring at his portable medical scanner.
“What about you, Doc?” I said.
After a moment Doc switched off the scanner and looked up. “I’m not very good at political intrigue, but I can tell you that Duke Sebastian is a very sick man.”
“I think we’ve already established that much, Doc,” Lucky quipped.
“I’m not talking about his mental state. According to the scans I took of him, the Duke is suffering from some kind of degenerative neurological condition. In fact, if I had to make a guess, I’d say that his condition is terminal.”
For a while I could only sit there as I tried to come to terms with this new revelation. After everything he had done, I was surprised by how strongly I reacted to negative news about my uncle’s condition. Finally I asked, “What’s wrong with him?”
Doc let out a long breath and said, “I won’t know for sure until I finish analyzing the scan results. All I can tell you right now is that there’s evidence of accumulated poison in his tissues, especially in his central nervous system. Based on my preliminary analysis I’d say that he’s suffering from long term exposure to some kind of neurotoxin. Violent mood swings, uncontrollable tremors of the extremities, paranoia—these are all symptoms of advanced neurological deterioration.”
“How long do you think he has?” I asked.
“Judging by the rate of cellular decay, I estimate two to three months.”
Mark said, “
So if we just wait, our problem will take care of itself in a few months.”
“Unfortunately, I doubt it will be that simple,” I said. “This pirate Brotherhood has grown into something pretty powerful, and more importantly, profitable. There’s just too much money to be made for the pirates to simply close up shop. If Sebastian is dying, someone will step in to fill his shoes after he’s gone. There might be some internal fighting before someone finally manages to claw his way to the top, but that spot wouldn’t stay vacant long. They may not share Sebastian’s ultimate goal but they’ll keep on raiding the shipping lines until international economies collapse.”
For a while everyone sat silently absorbed in their own thoughts.
“Hey, Doc,” Lucky said suddenly, “why were you running a medical scan on the Duke in the first place?”
“I asked Doc to go with us and scan anyone we came into contact with,” I explained. “It seems that Doc discovered something interesting about our passenger and I wanted him to see if he got similar readings from anyone else at their base.”
“That little slip of a girl?” Lucky said. “What’s so special about her, well, aside from the obvious?”
“Doc’s the one who figured it out, so I’ll let him tell it,” I said.
Doc set his scanner down and clasped his hands together. “I noticed something odd when I ran a scan on the girl after she first complained about having a migraine. At first all the tests came back just the way you would expect. Migraines are caused by pressure fluctuations in the blood vessels of the head and those are the readings I was getting. To be on the safe side I also ran a general body scan to be sure I wasn’t missing anything, but again everything came back normal. It wasn’t until I got back to the lab and happened to glance at her genetic profile that I—”
“Excuse me, Sir.” Jimmy Hunter had just entered the bridge. I had left him posted at the gangway hatch entrance in case Sebastian sent someone for me. “It’s that girl who piloted the ship here. She’s asking to come aboard again. She wants to talk to you.”
“Speak of the devil,” Lucky said.
“Go ahead and finish what you were telling them, Doc,” I said as I stood up. “I’ll see what she wants.”
I followed Jimmy down to the gangway hatch where Angela was being guarded by the third member of the tactical team, Bruce Stone.
“I’ll take it from here, Bruce,” I said when I reached the hatch.
Angela looked up at me with a worried expression. Waves of anxiety seemed to radiate from her. “Is there someplace we can speak privately, Captain?”
“Let’s go to my cabin,” I said, gesturing her aboard. A short time later we were standing inside my quarters. Angela was wringing her hands nervously and looking around.
“May I sit down?” she asked.
I indicated a chair facing the room’s desk. As she sat I walked to the other side of the desk and took a seat myself.
“What’s got you so upset?” I asked.
She seemed to be searching for the right words for several moments before she finally spoke. “It’s my father. The commandant just told me that my father has finished the plans for the rest of the base. As soon as they’re done excavating far enough into the asteroid the workers are going to begin the final phase of construction.” She paused and stared at me with large, soulful eyes. I sat quietly and waited for her to continue. When I didn’t react, she added, “Don’t you understand? The construction crews can finish the work now that the plans are complete. He doesn’t need my father anymore.”
I sat studying her for a moment. “You’re worried that the commandant is going to have your father killed.”
Angela broke out in tears. “Please, Captain Pell, I need your help,” she said between sobs. “I don’t know who else I can turn to.”
I considered what she had told me. “Killing your father seems a little reckless to me,” I said. “Wouldn’t it make more sense for him to just lock him up somewhere in case he needs him again in the future?”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “He’s … he’s not sane. He did the same thing to the engineers who designed those giant cannons you saw at the entrance to the tunnel. Once they were finished designing the guns he had some of his men cycle them through an airlock without environment suits. He doesn’t trust anyone who isn’t a sworn member of the Brotherhood.”
“What about all the others I saw around the base?” I asked. “All those people wearing obedience collars?”
“They’re just slave labor. He brought them here to expand the base and do all of the work to keep everything running. This entire installation was built using forced workers. He’s been having the pirate captains bring him the crews from the ships they hijack for years. There’s got to be close to five hundred workers here. He says he’d got more than enough people to finish the work now. Once the base is completed he’s going to eliminate most of them too. He gets rid of anyone he doesn’t need anymore.”
I studied her for several moments. “You’re not wearing a collar,” I observed.
An angry look clouded her features. “He doesn’t need to collar me. He knows I’ll do anything to keep my father safe. And I was his insurance to keep my father working.”
“And what about you, now that your father is no longer useful to him?” I said.
“I … I suppose he’ll have me killed as well,” she said quietly.
I sat back in my chair and regarded her for a while. “Exactly what do you want me to do?”
She chewed her lip for a moment before answering. “Would you be willing to help me smuggle my father away from here?”
“You realize that I’ve just agreed to join the Brotherhood myself,” I said. “All I have to do is tell the commandant about this little conversation and he’ll probably blast you out of an airlock as well.”
Angela hung her head as more tears flowed. “It doesn’t matter,” she said as a large tear splashed into her lap. “If I can’t save my father I might as well be dead. He’s all I have. You were my last hope.” She sat sobbing quietly for a moment, then looked up at me and wiped her eyes. “I … I can pay you,” she said softly.
“Where are you going to get money?”
“I don’t have any money,” she said, “but I can pay you in another way.” She stood up and slowly began to undo the front of her clothing. After a moment I stood and walked around to her side of the desk. She looked shyly up at me as I reached out and placed my hands on top of hers. She lifted her chin, tilting her mouth up for me to kiss. Moving her hands aside, I started to refasten her clothes.
“You don’t need to do that,” I said.
“You don’t want me?” she said, sounding surprised by my refusal.
“I’ve never been much for taking advantage of people,” I said.
At that moment the cabin lights suddenly went out.
“What’s happening?” Angela gasped as she threw herself against me in the darkness. A moment later, dim emergency lights glowed on around the base of the room’s bulkheads.
“My engineer is taking care of a few maintenance issues,” I said. “Excuse me.” Taking her by the shoulders I moved her back a step then returned to my seat.
She looked around nervously for a moment then slowly lowered herself back into her seat as well.
“Assuming that I was willing to help you,” I said, “how do you propose we pull this off? I have no idea where your father is being held, let alone how to sneak him out of there without anyone noticing.”
Angela reached into the neck of her blouse and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. She unfolded it and pressed it flat on the desk.
“I drew this map for you.” Leaning forward to better see in the low light, she pointed at different areas of the drawing. “We’re here. My father is locked in a small compartment here, not far from the commandant’s office. There’s a guard posted in front of the door with a key card. All
you have to do is get rid of the guard and we can use his card to free my father. It shouldn’t be too hard to smuggle him aboard your ship after that. Once we have him on board I can pilot us out through the tunnel. I don’t care where you take us after that, I just want to be away from here.”
I took some time to study the map. From what little I had seen of the base, her drawing looked accurate. “What’s this over here?” I asked, tapping a large, unmarked section.
“That’s the slave barracks. The slaves are given six hours out of every twenty-four to rest. Whenever they’re not working they’re locked in there.”
“And this?” I asked, pointing at an adjacent area.
“That’s the dock entrance for the construction teams. Once they’re suited up, the workers go out through this airlock and are shuttled to their work site for the day.”
I continued to study the map for a while and noted several other areas that were blank as well. When I asked her about these she was only able to identify the galley. The rest she said were restricted sections of the base that she had never been in. Finally I sat back.
“What you’re proposing is very risky,” I told her. “There are a lot of things that could go wrong.” I held her eyes for a while as I tried to judge what was going on in her mind. “I’m still not sure why you came to me with this. There’s no reason for me to stick my neck out for you.”
“I don’t know, really,” she said. “I suppose it’s because you seem different from the other captains. I just have this feeling that you’re the kind of man who’ll do the right thing.” After watching me for a moment she stood up, shoulders drooping. “I should be going. The commandant doesn’t know that I’m here.”
I stood as well. “I’ll see you off the ship.”
As I stepped up beside her she took my hand in both of hers. “I’m putting our lives in your hands, Captain. Please help us.”
I pulled my hand out of hers after a moment and gestured toward the cabin door. “I’ll let you know what I decide.” I escorted her out of my cabin and off the ship as my mind whirled with possibilities.