The Veritian Derelict (Junkyard Dogs) (17 page)

Chapter
23.

"...It was as though the woman was the very spawn of Satan! She could tell almost immediately when someone was lying or even shading the truth. Yes, I must admit that truthseers have their uses but I, for one, have never been even the least bit comfortable around them. It is reputed that this one did not even need the cursed electronic augmentation devices, that she could penetrate a man's soul without them. It is a great tragedy that she was not captured or killed during the New Ceylon incident with the Veritian Brotherhood. We might have been rid of her and her accursed abilities forever..."

S
egment of a conversation about the Lady Sondia Saladin and her truthseer abilities recording during a confidential meeting in the early days of the Great Santana Conflict between the Sheik of Barsoom and a Lieutenant who had been subjected to a truthseer interrogation two years earlier.

On board Meridian Imperial Diplomatic Ship
Istanbul
, docked near the Santana Nexus Station. December 3, 2598.

The reception in the
Istanbul's
ballroom suites was well underway when Carlisle arrived. With around sixty people present, plus at least a dozen of the Ambassador's personal guard, the atrium to the ballroom was accommodating about as many people it could hold. Members of the various factions within the group had gathered into assorted clumps of various sizes, each of which seemed to be discussing the subjects dearest to them. The noise level was amazingly high.

Carlisle
scanned the room and started heading for the largest of the groups, the one that contained the Ambassador and his wife. As she made her way carefully through the throng she nearly bumped into Clancy Davis-Moore. Carlisle had met him two months ago during the battle to reclaim the New Ceylon Orbital station. There hadn't been time for her to get to know him very well but she knew that he had played an important role in the fighting. Because of this, he was also one of only a few people in the room that she felt she could trust completely.

"Dr. Tamara Carlisle, I presume?" said Davis-Moore
, by way of greeting. "How very nice to see you again." He hadn't used her military title and there was a hearty smile behind his impressive, handlebar moustache. His eyes twinkled.

"Mr. Davis-Moore,
" she said, keeping their meeting outwardly formal. "The pleasure is all mine." He took two long-stemmed glasses of an amber liquid off from a tray that was being circulated by a steward and handed one of them to her. In keeping with Islamic tradition, none of these beverages contained any alcohol. His manner immediately grew much more serious and he leaned towards her and spoke very softly, so only she could hear him.

"I don't like this set up one bit, Tamara," he said, eyes
roving nervously over the crowd. "Several of these people are from the Meridian Orthodox Faction. They're the main opposition to the Ambassador's party back on Meridian."

"I
've been reading about them in my briefing materials," she replied. "Surely the security for this meeting is top level. What is it that's bothering you, Clancy?"

"
That's just it, the security screening when we were brought on board was only minimal; the Ambassador was afraid they might offend someone, particularly the Sheik of New Cairo or some member of this entourage. Maybe it's a long shot, but one of those people could have gotten through with a stealth hand weapon, like a quantum knife or something."

"The Sheik of
New Cairo?" asked Carlisle. "That name wasn't on my list."

"That's how he was introduced," replied Davis-Moore.

"Sondia told me to stay close to them tonight," she replied. "I'm on my way over to join them right now. I'll keep an eye out and do what I can. Thanks for the heads up, Clancy."

He smiled
again and looked at least somewhat relieved. "It really is good to see you again, Tamara," he said.

She smiled
back at him and resumed her path towards the Ambassador and his cluster of hangers on. As she came up to the group, Sondia greeted her warmly and motioned for Carlisle to take a place next to her. Lieutenant Harvick, in his Navy dress whites, gave Carlisle and her civilian clothes another long accusatory look as she took a place right next to him in the Ambassador's small knot of people. She made an effort to engage Harvick, to remind him that, in spite of her wardrobe choice, the two of them were still on the same team.

"So
, Lieutenant," she asked, "do you know which one of these people is the Sheik of New Cairo?"

"He is the tall man with the purple sash," answered Harvick, nodding towards a man standing a little apart from their group
who at that moment was conversing quietly with one of his attendants while looking at the Ambassador with narrowed eyes. Having identified the person of concern, Carlisle kept a portion of her attention on the Sheik while nodding and mumbling politely, something she was particularly good at, when she was introduced to any of the other dignitaries. With her nearly perfect memory, she could remember all of the faces, names and occupations of each of them. Sondia leaned over and spoke softly but urgently into her ear.

"Th
at young man in the brown robes right next to the Sheik of New Cairo is becoming more and more agitated and I'm almost certain that the Sheik lied about him, Tamara. Whatever you do, don't take your eyes off from him!"

Carlisle could see little outward evidence of any nervousness on the young man's part but she immediately remembered that the Ambassador's wife had very special training and very special abilities.
Carlisle also noted that Sondia was wearing one of her Truthseer veils.

"Truthseer net?" Carlisle whispered back. The Lady Saladin nodded
tersely in assent.

Carlisle
took a small sip of her drink and handed her nearly full glass to one of several servers circulating through the crowd. She turned her attention back to the young man, who had been introduced as one of the Sheik's aides, and tried to remain as inconspicuous as she could about it. Neither he nor this "Sheik of New Cairo" had been listed anywhere in her memory chip briefings.

It was during the confusion at the end of the reception
and the beginning of the dinner, when the small groups had either broken up or migrated as a group through a short hallway into the adjoining dining room that the terrorists made their move. Much of the crowd had already filed into the dining room and people were milling about looking for their seats while continuing their various conversations.

When the
atrium that had housed the reception was all but empty, with only a few of the Ambassador's immediate group and a handful of stragglers remaining, the attack came. The Ambassador's full attention was on the Sheik of New Cairo with whom he was having a heated conversation about some arcane religious issue. The young aide that Carlisle had been told to watch, his attention totally focused on the Ambassador from a position about two meters behind the dignitary, reached within his robes and pulled out something that flashed in the light. While retrieving the object, he had simultaneously begun to move towards the Ambassador.

With her Spacer
upbringing and her gymnastics training to draw upon, Carlisle had been at the very top of her class in hand to hand combat techniques during the entire time she had been at the Academy. With time only to react in the present situation, she allowed the instincts she had developed through long practice to take over. She roughly shoved past Harvick and stepped between the Ambassador and his would-be assailant. She fell into a fighting crouch, her hands up and open. Time seemed to stand still. The words of her hand-to-hand combat instructor at the academy flashed through her mind.

"You are a very strong and very skilled woman, Tamara,"
he had said
, "among the best I've ever trained, but you are small and do not mass very much. If you find yourself in a hand-to-hand combat situation with a much larger, armed opponent you must choose your earliest opportunity to go on the offensive. When you do, you must act swiftly and savagely; hold nothing back! Your object is to kill or maim, anything less could be fatal to you."

Scowling angrily, the man turned his attention
to this totally unexpected and unwanted distraction. His expression changed to one of incredulous wonder. Confronting him was an unarmed woman, one who was rather on the small side, with some sort of heathen-spawned tattoo on an otherwise not unattractive face. It appeared she was attempting to deny him access to the Ambassador. He would simply sweep this insignificant defender, this insect, aside to get to his target.

H
e stepped towards her, intending to knock her out of the way with a sweep of his left arm but the incredible speed with which his opponent moved and her unexpected strength took the would-be attacker totally by surprise. Carlisle ducked easily under the sweeping arm and grabbed the man's other arm, the one with the weapon in it. Maintaining the same fluid motion, Carlisle shoved downwards on the man's weapon arm, instinctively concentrating all of her weight and strength onto twisting his right elbow across the front of his rib cage. Something snapped in the man's arm and a ceramic-handled force blade knife clattered to the floor.

With the
would-be assailant bewildered, off balance and bent almost double, Carlisle had a split second to think. A knee to her opponent's exposed throat would crush his windpipe and almost certainly kill him. The man was helpless and she was surrounded by at least a dozen of the Ambassador's guards. In that instant, she chose not to kill him and redirected her right knee savagely up into the man's face instead. With his nose suddenly rushing blood, he collapsed in a heap.

Now
completely in the throes of a huge adrenalin rush, Carlisle came out of the brief skirmish with all senses on total alert and scanned the area for other threats, just as her training and her heightened instincts dictated. She immediately zeroed in on one of the servers. An older man taking advantage of the diversion provided by his companion, he was already approaching the Ambassador from his left side. As she watched, he ditched his serving tray after pulling another ceramic force knife out from under a stack of napkins.

"
Excellency, look out!" she cried as she leapt towards the new assailant, this time attacking immediately. She began spinning as she left the floor, landed on her right foot and delivered a vicious roundhouse kick with her left foot, catching the wrist of the older man's knife hand. The ceramic force knife skittered across the floor. Following through after completing the spin, Carlisle again found herself in a fighting crouch, facing the older man. Her movements had positioned her between the assailant and the Ambassador and she was in the process of making up her mind about whether she should kill the man, which was the safer way, or to merely try and disable him. Had it been just the two of them, the confused assailant would have been dead within the next few seconds.

She was
spared any decision regarding further action when the Ambassador's guards, after having been temporarily immobilized by the suddenness of the combined attacks, regained their composure, surrounded the Ambassador and moved in to take custody of both attackers, along with their leader, the Sheik of New Cairo. The first attacker was lying on the floor where Carlisle had downed him. He still wasn't moving.

The entire affair
was over in seconds and had only been witnessed by a handful of people, all of whom, besides Harvick and Clancy Davis-Moore, were immediate members of the Ambassador's entourage or were trusted members of his personal guard. It was probably pure luck, but Carlisle had done her part to thwart the attack and had somehow managed to maintain her cover. As she stood down, Carlisle thought briefly that she wouldn't have been able to stave off either of the two attacks if she had chosen the elegant gown over the more practical suit with pants, before another urgent matter demanded her attention

W
ith everyone was still in shock from the attack, an announcement came over the ship's intercom.

"
Captain to the bridge, Captain to the bridge! The Santana Station is under attack!"

Chapter
24.

On board Meridian Imperial Diplomatic Ship
Istanbul
, docked near the Santana Nexus Station December3, 2598.

Sondia
, obviously concerned but calm in spite of the sudden announcement, motioned to Carlisle to accompany her and follow the Ambassador to the bridge of the
Istanbul
. Harvick and Davis-Moore fell in behind them as they rushed out of the atrium. Several of the guards moved efficiently into the dining room to secure the area and reassure the stunned crowd. In less than two minutes the Ambassador and his four companions arrived breathlessly on the bridge of the
Istanbul
. Captain Nassar, still in full dress uniform, had gotten there just before them and, after immediately issuing the order to raise the ship's formidable shields, was frantically attempting to sort out threats while simultaneously considering his rather limited list of responses.

"
This is totally unexpected, Excellency," said Nassar. "It is also very bad. The
Perseus
has defected to the opposition! Their first act was to attack our other destroyer escort which they did without any warning. As you can see, the
Xerxes
took heavy damage and is unable to fight. Captain Hassad of the
Perseus
has ordered us to surrender."

"
Hassad? I might have known!" said the Ambassador. "I have suspected him for some time but now I know for certain. What are our options, Nassar?"

"They would appear to be very limited, Excellency," replied the Captain. "Our shields will hold for a while but eventually..."

On the main viewscreen Carlisle could see that t
wo ships were menacing the station and any ship that was nearby, the
Istanbul
among them. As they watched on the main viewscreen, twin pulses flashed out of the twin mount beam projector on the bow end of a destroyer that bore Meridian markings and made impact on what appeared to be an already badly damaged UTFN destroyer. A similar ship was menacing the Military end of the orbital station and, as they watched, two accurately aimed pulses from that destroyer's forward turret struck a shuttle that had just exited the air curtain in an attempt to escape. The central portion of the tiny craft exploded in a bright flash and the two ends went cartwheeling lazily outward from the point of impact.

A
cutter, also attempting to escape, then exited from the Military end of the station under full acceleration. A pulse bolt, this time from the aft main battery of the aggressor destroyer, grazed past her stern, doing no apparent damage. The cutter immediately maneuvered to place the station between it and the attacking ship. The tactic seemed to have bought them some time, the small craft remained intact, at least for the time being.

Carlisle's
tactical mind went into overdrive as she took stock of the situation. One of the two aggressors was presumably the newly defected
Perseus
while the other was an ally that must have been docked near the station. She remembered having seen the second ship from the bridge of the
Asimov
earlier. Carlisle took in the scene and immediately surmised that after disabling the
Xerxes
and attacking the unidentified Federation ship, the two aggressors had fired warning shots at the Santana Station. Rather than actually intending to do any harm to the station, they were instead probably trying to force the authorities to surrender and had no immediate plans to significantly damage it. Her suspicions were confirmed when the Captain of the defected
Perseus
issued an ultimatum to the Nexus Station.

"
Santana Nexus, in the name of the Sheik of Barsoom, true Emperor of Meridian, I demand that you surrender immediately!
"

Another of the
Istanbul's
view screens, set to display nearby space traffic, showed at least four additional ships, one of them appearing to be a fairly large unit, possibly a cruiser, boring in on the station in a loose formation that would bring them within weapons range sometime in the next few minutes. The
FNS
Asimov
was the only Federation ship putting up any kind of defense, probably because she had been set to depart later in the day and the ship had been fully manned and the crew somewhat alert.

T
he two other Federation destroyers, those that were to remain on guard at the station, had apparently not been ready for any kind of action and had succumbed early during the surprise attack. As Carlisle had just observed, at least one of them appeared to have taken heavy damage within the last few seconds. The remaining Federation destroyer had somehow been able to get her shields up but appeared to have taken significant damage beforehand as well.

Something needed to be done and quickly
!

Carlisle, her tactical
mind now fully engaged, assessed the situation quickly and efficiently. She remembered several important details from her brief but thorough perusal of the
Istanbul's
specifications. Combining these details with her recently acquired knowledge of "extreme tactics" she came up with a solution for their predicament.

"
Excellency," she addressed the Ambassador. "This ship is equipped with a Pearson compensator. Is that correct?"

Captain
Nassar interrupted her immediately. "Yes, we have a compensator, Ensign, but I strongly disagree with what I think you are about to suggest. We simply can't guarantee..."

Carlisle interrupted him
in turn, "Sorry, Captain, there's no time! Ambassador Saladin, I suggest we perform a microjump towards the Whitney hyperlink point as soon as possible, preferably within the next thirty seconds, and then use the jump point to get completely out of this system immediately."

"But we are
too close to the station," said Nassar.

"
The Nexus Station is free-standing, there are no gravity wells of any appreciable size anywhere near this area," said Carlisle. "With the compensator we won't have any problem with the jump, even if we're not in the usual microjump zone. Normally, courtesy and system regulations wouldn't allow us to jump while we're this close to the station, in fact, whoever these people are, they're probably counting on it! This is an emergency! With officials from twelve governments on board, we have to be their prime target! We won't have a chance if we behave the way they expect us to. I say jump and jump now!"

"Program the jump, Captain," said the Ambassador
, with no hesitation.

Captain
Nassar may have disagreed with Carlisle's suggestion but when ordered to do so by the Ambassador, he carried out the unorthodox instruction without further delay. In the brief period before the jump, Davis-Moore used a small hand transmitter to contact his own ship, the
Dingo
, frantically repeating Carlisle's instructions to the
Dingo's
captain.

Just as the
incoming enemy ship formation was getting close enough for visual detection and, more importantly, into effective beam weapons range, the
Istanbul
flashed pure white for a fraction of a second before completely disappearing from the vicinity of the Station. Davis-Moore's ship, the
Dingo,
on the far side of the orbital station and most likely not a prime target anyway, followed within a minute. The microjump lasted just over two minutes, subjective time, and the
Istanbul
phased back into normal space a scant fifteen minutes from the Santana Nexus System's Whitney macrojump point.

The ship was almost immediately challenged.

"Istanbul
, stand down immediately or be attacked!
" came the terse warning, though it was audio only. At that moment Davis-Moore's cargo ship flashed into view a few kilometers away. Both ships ignored the warning hail and began accelerating towards the Whitney jump point.

Carlisle
had been rescanning the specifications of the
Istanbul
on her wrist computer during the entire time they had been in the microjump.

"What kind of ship just challenged us?" she asked.

"It appears to be a Clovian destroyer, very likely an
El-Nashar
class," said the ship's communications officer. "Not the latest design, but still quite formidable.

Carlisle
brought up the specs on the destroyer type, scanned a few vital parameters, and made another decision.

"Have
the
Dingo
take a position that puts us between him and the enemy ship," she said.

"What are you suggesting
now, Ensign?" asked Nassar.

"We continue with our plan to jump out of this system," she replied. "
According to my briefing materials, this ship is based on a
Cutlass
class heavy cruiser. We don't have the offensive weapons of a
Cutlass
, but we do have the same shielding. The armament on that destroyer is no match for our shields. Tell the
Dingo
to stay in our shadow and jump as soon as possible. In fact, let her go first, we can sustain a few hits."

"Do you agree,
Nassar," asked the Ambassador. "Are the shields strong enough?"

Nassar
, eying the Ensign with grudging respect, nodded his head in agreement.

"Yes, Excellency,
it will not be comfortable, but we should have no difficulty. Where are we jumping to?" asked Nassar.

"Exactly
where they won't expect us to," said Carlisle, "New Ceylon."

The Ambassador thought about it briefly and nodded his head in assent.

"I can think of no better destination at the moment, Ensign. Make it so, Captain Nassar. Clancy, inform your ship's captain of our intentions."

Davis-Moore
tersely gave instructions over his small communicator. Unobserved by any of them, a minor communications technician, one who was fairly new to the crew of the
Istanbul
, mumbled something surreptitiously into a small communications device before quickly returning it to concealment. In the confusion of the moment, the illicit communication went unnoticed.

The captain of the
Dingo
skillfully positioned his modern freighter so it was shielded from attack from the destroyer by the somewhat larger bulk of the
Istanbul.
Captain Nassar received two more verbal warnings followed by a shot across his bow from the enemy destroyer before the aggressor ship's captain realized the
Istanbul
had no intention of surrendering and he finally gave the order to open fire on them in earnest. Two sharp impacts from the twin-mount pulse beam turret on the bow end of the destroyer struck the
Istanbul.
The diplomatic ship's lozenge-shaped energy shield, which outlined the entire ship to a distance of some thirty meters, flared dark purple. On board the
Istanbul
, the occupants felt the big ship lurch and saw the lights flicker before resorting to their former level of brightness.

The Captain of the enemy ship interrupted his attack to
provide the
Istanbul
with another opportunity to surrender. Whatever else it was the attackers may have wanted, it was obvious that they were hoping to take prisoners, otherwise they would have been firing more intently and more rapidly. Still the
Istanbul
refused to respond. Five seconds later, the
Dingo
disappeared as she flashed into hyperspace. The
Istanbul
took two more hits before she too phased into the relative safety of Wu-Chang psuedospace.

Unseen by any of the crew of either escaping ship, the
Asimov,
firing her main batteries with superb accuracy, held off two enemy ships while the cutter that had just escaped from the station skidded frantically into her docking bay. Taking a hint from the
Istanbul
and the
Dingo
, the
Asimov
flashed into microjump mode less than five seconds later. Two beams from the
Perseus
arrowed through the empty space where she had been.

***

After several minutes for the personnel of the
Istanbul
to recover from the disorienting effects of the jump, Captain Nassar addressed their rogue Spacer tactician. The Captain did not look pleased but he spoke up anyway. "Good work, Dr. Carlisle, I don't know that I would have responded so boldly. It was almost certainly the right thing to do."

Lieutenant
Harvick, his diplomatic skills of little use in an actual fire fight, looked shocked and bewildered though Carlisle thought she detected something in his attitude towards her that she hadn't seen before: a hint of respect.

"Remarkable, Dr. Carlisle," said
the diplomatic officer, shaking his immaculately groomed head, "simply remarkable!"