Battle station G-6

The d'Alemberts and the Bavols were not precisely sure what one of the conspiracy's

"battlestations" might be, but the title did not sound promising. It conjured up images of

heavy fortifications and impressive firepower. More than merely a battleship, it would not

be designed to outrun or contact the enemy. Instead, it sounded like a defensive position

where the conspiracy was prepared to dig in and fight back against almost anything the

Empire chose to throw against it.

"We could call in the Navy and batter it into submission. . . ." Jules began hesitantly.

"But you don't like to be that heavy-handed," Yvette finished the sentence for him.

Jules grinned sheepishly. "Well, there is something to be said for subtlety."

"There's only one person in the Galaxy less subtle than you, mon eher frere, and that's

my own dear husband. Nevertheless, you're right. If we call in an entire fleet to take care

of one station, we'll put the station out of commission and learn nothing further.

Sometimes a can opener is better than a sledgehammer."

"Then, too," Yvonne pointed out, "we know the conspiracy is able to monitor our internal

affairs somehow. If we put in a call for help, they might get wind of it and run away

before we can catch them. Right now the only people we can trust are ourselves. I think

we ought to wrap this up ourselves, and use the Navy only as a backup if something

goes wrong."

They spent the rest of the day thrashing out the details of a plan. They could not be too

specific because they didn't know precisely what sort of threat they'd be facing; a lot of it

would have to be invented as they went along.

For that reason, it was decided that Jules and Yvette would make the actual assault on

the battle station. They were the most experienced of the group, having worked together

for many years both as agents in the field and as acrobats in the Circus. They knew

every move and reflex the other had. And truth to tell, as much as they loved their

respective spouses, they were glad to have a chance to work with each other again.

As agreed, Vonnie would stay behind and guard their prisoners. She didn't like receiving

what she regarded as preferential treatment because of her condition, but even she had

to admit her job would be vital. Not only did she have to keep their captives

incommunicado long enough for the others to do their jobs, but there had to be someone

left behind to notify the Navy if their plan failed. It was decided she would give the others

two days; if she hadn't heard from them by the end of that time, she would call in

reinforcements.

That left Pias in need of something to do. He agreed to pilot the ship towards the battle

station. This would not be as simple as task as it sounded, because he was almost

certain to come under fire the moment he approached the object. His newly-acquired

skills as a pilot would be put to the most severe test as he tried to accomplish his goals

while dodging enemy blaster beams at the same time. It was a necessary task, but not

one he was looking forward to.

The three SOTE agents were in full space battle armor as their ship dropped out of

subspace near the coordinates of the battle station. The armor was uncomfortable, but

the alternatives to wearing it were even more so. If their vessel were destroyed, the

armor gave them a chance to survive and carry on their mission.

They made sure to materialize well out of weapons range, so they could have a look at

the enemy before moving in. At this distance, several hundred kilometers away, there

were few details visible even through a powerful scope. The station was a large black

ball of metal several hundred meters in diameter. Its surface bristled with projections that

threatened anyone approaching its sights. It was difficult to tell, but it seemed to have its

own engines mounted on the rear, making it somewhat mobile although the agents

doubted it was capable of any great speed.

"Can't tell much about it from here," Jules said regretfully. "We'll have to move in closer

to see anything specific. "

"If we get much closer you'll have to look pretty fast," Pias said, "because I'll be busy

dodging blaster beams." "There's no other way, I'm afraid," Yvette said. "We'll have to

get close to it sometime, and the sooner the better; Boros can see us on her screens

right now just as clearly as we can see her. The less time we give her to prepare for our

arrival, the more chance we'll have to succeed."

With no further prompting, Pias began the ship on its course toward the unknown

opponent. He started moving slowly, building up speed at a gradual pace until he was

zipping along a confusing path at cruising rate. This ship was not La Comete Cuivre, the

fast little craft that belonged exclusively to Jules and Yvette; because the four agents had

needed more than a two-seater to get from DesPlaines to Floreata, they'd taken Le

Lapin from the d'Alembert hangar. Nevertheless, it handled with superb precision,

obeying Pias's split second commands.

The battle station grew larger in the scope, but it remained ominously silent. It issued no

radio or subcom challenge, made no attempt to communicate with the tinier vessel. The

blaster turrets swivelled to cover the ship as it moved, but there was no other indication

of life within the somber fortress.

Except for the projecting turrets, the outer hull of the battle station appeared completely

smooth. There were no docking facilities, no viewpoints, nothing but barren metal. Jules,

who had his eye on the scope, mentioned this to his companions and added, "it looks like

they're not eager for visitors. I'm not sure there's any way to get inside. . . . Wait, there's

a small ship docked there. It fits in so snugly it looks like part of the hull. It can't be more

than a one- or two-seater. Unless it's used as a ferry, there can't be much of a crew

inside. That's a break for us. And there, on that side-it looks like a small maintenance

hatch. Again, not very big, but. . . . "

At that point he was jolted away from his calm reflections. The battle station, deciding

this intruding vessel had come close enough, began firing its lesser guns, and Pias

needed all the speed of his high-grav reflexes to maneuver Le Lapin out of the line of

fire. From this point on, they would be caught in a deadly dance; one slight miscalculation

and the ship would be gutted by the burning beam of the battle station's blasters.

It was Pias's show for the moment; Jules and Yvette could only hang on tightly to their

seats as their comrade guided the ship through the treacherous combat zone. "Better

think of something fast," Pias said without taking his eyes off his screens for a second.

"The longer I stick around here, the more chance I have of dodging too slowly one time,

and that's all it takes."

"We have to get in there," Jules said. "If there is only a small crew, we stand a good

chance of being able to take them ourselves."

"That maintenance hatch you mentioned sounds like the best bet," Yvette added. "if we

can get to it."

"There are no docking facilities, and the station wouldn't give us time to dock even if

there were," Jules said. "We'll have to be dropped off in passing. Do you think you can

make a close swing to let us off?"

Pias gave him a tight grin.. "I'll peel the paint off that station's hull. Just give me a couple

of minutes to maneuver into the right position."

Jules and Yvette took that as their cue to leave the control room. It was difficult to move

through a ship undergoing a constant series of abrupt accelerations; they had to take one

cautious step at a time, keeping a firm grip on the walls, acceleration couches, and

anything else in reach. Adding to the dilemma was the awkwardness of their heavy battle

armor; even though they'd trained in its use for years until wearing it was a second

nature, it made each movement a special challenge.

Slowly, the two DesPlainians traveled through the central axis of the ship to the airlock.

Once inside and with the inner hatch closed behind them, they opened the outer hatch

and faced the inky blackness of interstellar space. "What you'll have to do," Jules

explained over his radio link to Pias, "is shoot us out of here like a rock from a sling. Let

us know when you're making the closest approach and then pull up; we'll push ourselves

out, and the forward momentum we get from the ship should hurl us right into the hull of

the station."

"Khorosho," Pias answered cheerily. "Did you learn this from one of your relatives who's

a human cannonball?" "We don't have any acts like that in the Circus," Yvette said. "We'll

just have to improvise this one as we go along."

It took some time before Pias, dodging maniacally through the increasingly deadly field of

blaster beams, could maneuver Le Lapin into the proper position to make the needed

charge at the station. Finally the moment came when he was prepared to make the

move. "Get ready," he told the others. Aiming the nose of his ship directly at the

maintenance hatch, he raced toward the station's surface at top speed.

Blaster bolts streaked harmlessly through empty space around him as he held to a tight

collision course. Some of the beams missed the surface of Le Lapin by a matter of

meters, but Pias gritted his teeth and did not flinch. The range between his vessel and

the station diminished at an ever increasing rate. His eyes were watching four gauges at

once, and his hands remained rock steady on the controls. If he moved too soon, Jules

and Yvette would be shot off into empty space instead of onto the skin of the battle

station; if he moved too late, he wouldn't be able to pull out and would crash into the side

of the metal planetoid.

As the numbers on his readout screen dovetailed into the course he had mentally

calculated, his hands moved quickly over the controls. "Now!" he shouted over the radio,

simultaneously activating the auxiliary jets for a quick sidewards motion.

Just as he'd promised, he came close to scraping the paint from the battle station's hull.

If the station had been a smooth ball, his maneuver would have been precision perfect

and he'd have veered off into space again with only the slightest of space between the

enemy fortress and his own craft.

Unfortunately, the battle station was not a perfectly smooth ball. The constantly rotating

blaster turrets were an uncalculable factor in the topography of the surface. Just as the

ship veered off, one of the nearby turrets swung directly into its path. The tip of the

barrel just grazed the ship, but at the high speed Pias was traveling, that was a disaster.

The vessel shook with a major jolt that nearly knocked Pias from his acceleration couch,

and it began tumbling uncontrollably on its course outward from the battle station. Pias

grabbed at the controls and frantically tried to stabilize the craft once more, but that took

his attention away from the very necessary task of dodging the blaster beams.

One of those blasters finally caught up with him. Because of the ship's wild spinning, the

beam did not catch it dead center, but sliced through a portion of the tail. As the

high-energy ray hit the motor and drive components already overcharged themselves

through their rigorous action-the back end of the craft exploded, leaving Le Lapin a dead

lump of twisted metal careening madly in an eccentric orbit around the battle station that

had destroyed it.

Jules and Yvette did not see the fate of their ship, so busy were they with their own

assault. At Pias's command, they leaped out of the hatch, pushing off just as Le Lapin

veered away from its headlong flight into the side of the station. They were now being

flung at high speed directly at the wall. The spacing of this stunt was critical.

As it was, Pias had undershot the distance just a bit. The instant they left the ship's hatch

they began firing their airjets to decelerate, and still the station was coming up at them

much too fast. They had to wait until the last possible second to get the most advantage

out of their jets; then, in one fluid motion, they twisted their bodies around so that their

legs were under them, ready to absorb the impact like coiled springs.

As superbly trained acrobats from a high-gravity world, they were used to hard impacts,

and the collision with the hull of the battle station seemed little worse than the leap to the

ground that had been the climax of their trapeze act. Tucking their heads down as well as

they could in the cumbersome armor, they rolled their bodies forward in somersaults

upon landing to absorb the rest of their forward momentum. Their move was almost too

good, bouncing them off into space again, but a small correctional blast from their jets

brought them back to their desired location. They'd ended up on the battle station's hull

less than fifty meters from the maintenance hatch they'd been aiming for.

Using their jets once more, they skimmed quickly over the smooth surface, safely within

the minimum range of the station's big guns, to the hatchway. The hatch itself was closed

and locked, but Jules's high-powered blaster cut a way through the locking mechanism in

under a minute. He and Yvette forced open the doorway, knowing there was a chance

they might unseal the entire ship if the inner hatch was open. At this point, they didn't

really care. They had plenty of air inside their armor, and they knew Tanya Boros would

make sure she was safe no matter what. Everything else was irrelevant.

The inner airlock door was sealed as well, however, so the ship's interior remained

intact. They resealed the outer hatch and equalized the air pressure within the airlock and

the rest of the station. As the green light came on, indicating the airlock procedure was

complete, the two agents stood back from the doorway, expecting trouble.

And trouble came in abundance. As one of the few points of entry into the battle station,

that doorway had automatic defenses trained on it. The instant the airlock pressure was

equalized, the hatch door sprang open and a series of blaster beams sprayed the airlock

from the corridor outside. The total energy pouring into that tiny chamber lit it like a

minature sun.

If they hadn't been in the heaviest possible battle armor, Jules and Yvette would have

been instantly fried. As it was, the high intensity of the blaster beams nearly blinded

them, and would have cut through their armor in half a minute. The agents did not give it

a chance.

Yvette was in the best position to act. Quickly picking a grenade from the side of her

armor, she lobbed it forward through the open hatch. The explosion rocked the walls,

and the influx of deadly beams ceased immediately. The DesPlainians peered out of the

hatchway at a twisted pile of rubble that had been a stack of high-powered blasters

aimed into the airlock doorway.

The interior of the battle station was an enormous latticework, like a building still under

construction. Beams and girders crisscrossed everywhere, bracing the interior walls in

every direction against possible shocks from outside bombardment. In the center of the

sphere, the metal beams clustered more tightly together, forming a fortress within a

fortress. The central sphere was obviously where the living quarters and control areas of

this battle station were located, and it was there the two SOTS agents would have to

make their way.

There was no gravity within the station; everything was left in the eerie freefall of space.

Jules and Yvette did not simply push off and go flying inward towards the center,

however; if an ultragrav system were turned on while they were floating in midair, they

would suddenly go crashing in whatever direction was "down."

Instead, they activated the electromagnetic soles of their armored boots and provided

their own clinging force. The magnetic attraction to the bulkhead was enough to keep

them from drifting aimlessly, but not too much to rivet them to the spot. Cautiously,

holding on carefully to the girders, they began climbing their way through the tangled web

of steel beams and cables toward the heart of the battle station.

The air suddenly erupted with sizzling heat as more blasters, mounted in hidden locations

all around them, began firing. The DesPlainians fired back quickly. Their armor gave them

some protection; they could afford to take their time to locate the source of the different

beams and put each one out of commission. But even their plating was being severely

tested by the repeated high-energy barrages.

The interior defense of this battle station seemed no less thorough than the exterior. It

had been designed to withstand assaults, and Jules and Yvette were still fighting an uphill

struggle. Only their DesPlainian strength and reflexes, which enabled them to move

faster in space armor than ordinary people, had kept them from tragedy, and it was by

no means certain that this state of affairs could continue.

As yet they had not seen another living creature within this station. All its mechanisms, all

its defenses, were operating automatically with the speed of a computer. The computer

could not be frightened, could not panic, could not overreact or make a tactical blunder

that wasn't programmed into it. The battle station was a masterpiece of engineering, and

the SOTS team was beginning to realize they might have underestimated it. They would

have preferred to fight an army of living opponents rather than the cold, mechanical

precision of this automated destructive device.

Just as Yvette blasted back at the final attacking beam, a new threat appeared. From an

unseen launcher on the far side of the battle station, a small but deadly heat grenade

came lofting through the air toward their position. Jules's sharp eyes spotted the

projectile coming, and he shouted an immediate warning cry of "Rube!" to his sister.

To someone trained in the Circus as they both were, that traditional warning of

danger-shortened over the centuries from "Hey, Rube!"-brought an instantaneous re-

sponse. Yvette looked around immediately and spotted the projectile. If the two of them

waited here, the concussion from the grenade's explosion would at least knock them

unconscious if the blast didn't kill them outright. And they would not be able to run fast

enough along the girders in their magnetic boots to escape the effects of the grenade.

There was only one alternative. Jules and Yvette leaped off the support of the steel

beams into the freefall of midair, hoping to propel themselves far enough away from the

target area before the grenade could go off.

While they were in midair, disaster struck. Their fear that ultragrav would be used as a

weapon against them proved justified. If the battle station had been defended by a live

army, the tactic could not have been used because it would have incapaciated the

defenders as well as the attackers. But the machinery aboard the station didn't much

care whether there was a gravity field or not.

The instant the SOTE agents were unsupported in midair, the ultragrav snapped on.

Instantly there was a "down" direction, and their free-floating bodies began hurtling to-

ward the "floor" fifteen meters below them. The field strength was five gees, more even

than they were comfortably used to, and the armor made them that much more

awkward. Jules and Yvette grabbed frantically for handholds on the girders as they went

plummeting down, but they could get no grip. The pull of the ultragrav was too strong,

and even DesPlainians had limits on the speeds with which they could react.

The two bodies crashed heavily against the down side of the station's outer wall.

Although the padding within their armor absorbed much of the blow, the shock was still

too great for their systems to handle easily. The agents were knocked unconscious and

lay pinioned under the crushing weight of their own bodies and armor.

Safe and snug in the center of her mechanical spiderweb, Tanya Boros grinned. Although

the last report she'd gotten had said that Agents Wombat and Periwinkle had been

captured, she had little doubt that this assault on her station had been made by them.

Even though the attack had been totally unexpected, the battle station had reacted as it

had been designed to react. Lady A would be pleased that this latest addition to her

arsenal functioned perfectly.

And in the meantime, Tanya Boros would have the excitement of conducting an

interrogation personally. She had a lot of scores to settle with Agent Wombat.