THE BLUE DIAMOND
Sten’s first close up view of Demeter was so spectacular that he almost lost the ability to focus on the task before him.
The others must have felt the same way, for the usual pre-mission banter cut off in mid insult.
The little agworld reminded Sten of a ring he saw on the finger of a noblewoman at Parral’s royal court during his sojourn on the Wolf Worlds.
She had worn a diamond of incomparable beauty. Ida told him later that it was a rare blue diamond. The gem was as blue as the deepest tropical sea, with hints of emerald green flowing through it. It was so beautiful that at the time it took all of Sten’s willpower to not approach the woman for a closer look. If he had made so bold, one of Parral’s bravos would have slit his throat at the first opportunity.
Demeter was that same blue diamond again, but magnified thousands of times over. It was a deep blue, like the fabulous inland sea of Caribola, where he and Alex had partied after one of their early missions.
Running through the blue were streaks of iridescent green that seemed to move like fantastic rivers. As he gazed upon the marvel he could see fluffy white clouds scudding through the fabulous skies, with what he thought were flocks of birds swooping in and out of marshmallow clouds.
For a moment he imagined standing on the shores of a marvelous sea, air perfumed with the flowers of exotic plants blowing across his face.
As he gazed upon Demeter, Sten fell in love with the precious little world and was sorry to his core that what he had come to accomplish would soil it with beingkind’s nastiest sins. In his heart of hearts he wanted to seize the little planet and race away to hide it from further depredations.
Ida’s rough voice on the comm intruded on his reverie: “I’m picking up signs of sentient life about fifteen klicks from the landing port,” she said. “I estimate about fifty beings.”
Silence, then she spoke again: “There’s another group about ten klicks behind them. Not quite so many. Maybe twenty or so. My guess is that Skink is in the first group. And Venatora is leading the second.”
“How fast are they moving?” Sten asked.
“That’s what has me puzzled,” Ida said. “As near as I can tell neither group is moving much faster than a walk.”
Kilgour said, “Wonder why they’re afoot? Plenty ay transport oan Demeter frae whit Mahoney said.”
“Maybe they’ve already come to blows,” Mk’wolf said. “And they’re getting set to fight it out.”
“Makes sense to me,” Corporal Pegatha—Mk’wolf’s number two—opined.
“Don’t think so,” Ida said from her command seat on the Gessel. “They are moving steadily in one direction. And that would be north, toward the Command Center.”
Besides Kilgour, Mk’wolf and Pegatha, Sten’s team consisted of Ripley, Lancer, and five other fighters. If for some unforeseen reason Skink and Venatora joined forces that would be seventy against ten. But Sten’s ten were all Mantis trained, which would more than equal the odds. Of course, Sten had no intention of letting his enemies join forces.
In Mahoney’s words, this would be a truel. A three-way duel. And Sten had every intention of coming out on top.
On Sten’s monitor, Demeter’s overlaid chart took the form of a compass rose. It was 180 kilometers in diameter and looked like a ball cut in half. The top half was the agworld proper. The bottom, a flat plate. One edge of the plate—where the main entry port was located—was designated as South. North was where the Command Center had been built. It was in a dome on top of a mountain a hundred and twenty six kilometers to the north. The agworld’s solar-style arclights moved from east to west, with a sufficient period of darkness—night—for the plants to complete their photosynthesis cycle.
“Let’s find the entry port,” Sten told Mk’wolf, who was piloting their transport. “But come at it from an off angle, in case they have people watching their ships.”
“Aye, boss,” Mk’wolf said and got busy with the controls.
The bottom of the flat plate that Demeter sat upon was so black that it was difficult to see who or what was parked there.
Then they spotted a circle of lights flashing on the southern tip, where he guessed the entry port was located.
“There be th’ pirate ships,” Alex said, indicating shadowy shapes near the flashing lights.
A large, sleek little ship was parked nearby. “Venatora,” Sten guessed. After studying it a minute he added, “Just like we thought, it has star jump capabilities.”
“Th’ wee lass has somethin’ tricky in her noggin,” Kilgour said.
“Indeed,” Sten said.
A few minutes later Mk’wolf found a nice hidey-hole behind some girders and brought their little vessel to a halt. They clamped on, suited up, and exited the ship. Moving cautiously toward the entry port.
Mk’wolf, along with Ripley and Lancer, went ahead, battlerifles locked and loaded. A moment later they gave the “clear” signal and the others joined them and they followed signs pointing to the Transport Center.
But when they got there, they found a mess. An impatient someone had sheared off the entry port’s locking mechanism and it almost fell open at Sten’s touch. Not good. This sort of damage could lead to atmosphere leaks.
They went inside and pulled the lock shut.
“Better fix at sae it doesn’t bite us in the arse later when we’re wanderin’ abit,” Alex said.
“I’ll get it,” Pegatha said, getting a little tool kit out of her pack. She had proven to be as talented with her hands as she was a fighter.
Alex and Mk’wolf took up position on either side of the second door. This lock was undamaged—probably because the mechanism was so simple and didn’t require a pass code, or bioscan.
“How are we doing, Ida?” Sten whispered into his comm.
“No life signs in the chamber beyond,” Ida reported.
Even so, Sten cautiously eased up the unlocking lever, heard a soft, satisfying “click” and slowly pushed the door open, bit by bit.
He saw light. Waited. Pushing his senses forward. Nothing.
Sten went through fast, jumping to his right, and swinging his battlerifle from side to side, ready to fire at the slightest movement. Kilgour and Mk’wolf were right behind him. Mk’wolf going left, Kilgour joining Sten.
They looked about the Transport Center. The huge chamber they stood in was dimly lit. A large console stood several meters away. The monitor bank didn’t seem to be fully operational. The screens were blank and a few computer lights flashed on and off.
A half-a-dozen small gravsleds sat idle on one side of the chamber. They were all out of place, sitting askew of the bays that had once held them. Those bays were crowded with transports.
Scaffolding climbed three of the walls and Sten could see ’bots standing inactive on the different levels. A variety of other ’bots were scattered around the Transport Center, but all of them were inactive.
To Mk’wolf, Sten said, “See if you can get any of those gravsleds running.”
Mk’wolf set off, accompanied by Pegatha and the two Suzdals to investigate the transports. Meanwhile Sten and Alex led the others across the chamber to a wide alcove, with an unlit “Entry” sign above it.
One again they found damage caused by an impatient intruder. The alcove led to a large decontamination chamber. Signs warned of the dangers of foreign bugs and bacteria invading the agworld. Framed directions outlined the steps that needed to be taken before anyone was permitted to enter Demeter.
As near as Sten could figure, the process took about half-an-hour. Not long, even for a large party, considering the size of the decontamination chamber. It had room for several vehicles and twenty or more beings.
The big doors that had once closed off the chamber were buckled and sagging on their hinges. From the charred floor and drips of molten metal it looked like someone had slapped a blast charge on the doors and blew them apart.
Sten thought it was probably the work of Skink and his pirates. Venatora was not one to bull her way through an obstacle.
Mk’wolf came trotting up. “No joy there, boss,” he said.
Pegatha said, “Not a single one is operational. Can’t see why. They appear to be in top running order. Tried running juice through them, but it was like the cables and wires had been turned into non-conducting material. Not one speck of electricity could get through.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Sten said. “Well, I guess we’ll all have to walk. Fortunately, the others are in the same fix. I’d bet good money none of the pirates have walked further than one end of a bar to the other, so they’ll not only be slow, but they’ll get winded easily and have to rest a lot.”
“Bit uir lassies will nae hae at trouble,” Ales said. “They aw probably run five klicks a day affair sittin’ down to a braw breakfast ay steel-cut oatmeal an’ eggs.”
“We’ll soon find out,” Sten said, shouldering his pack and moving across the chamber toward a far door.
A moment later he was standing in the bright Demeter sunlight, a dark green forest of tall oaks before him and a wide silver metal roadway leading through the trees.
There was green grass all around them, with yellow and blue flowers popping up here and there.
A large sign had been kicked over onto the lawn. It read:
WARNING!
ALL UNAUTHORIZED LIFEFORMS
MUST STAY ON THE ROADWAY
“Ah ken thae means us,” Kilgour said.
“Indeed,” Sten said and set off down the roadway, leading his little army into the unknown.