Read Empire of Man 01 - March Upcountry for Free Online Page B

looked at the granite-faced Pahner again, "the system we have to make for . . ."
    He let his voice trail off and shrugged, and Roger nodded, with a dazed expression.
    "Of course, Captain. You need to get back to work. Good luck. Call me if you need anything."
    He realized how fatuous the last sentence sounded even as it dropped from his lips. What the heck could he do that trained and experienced crew members couldn't? Cook? But the already exhausted captain paid no attention to the silliness of the remark. He simply bowed, and stepped past Pahner and out of the cabin.
    The hatch closed behind him, and Pahner gave the prince another bleak smile.
    "What the Captain didn't mention, Your Highness, is where we're headed."
    "Which is where?" the prince asked warily.
    "Marduk, Your Highness."
    The prince searched his memory, but found nothing. A quick check of his implanted database found the planet, but it was simply listed as a Class Three imperial planet. A toot had a fairly large memory, but much of it was taken up by the interaction protocols. The remainder was filled with data which, in Roger's case, anyway, was selected at the user's discretion. Now the entry flashed across the surface of his consciousness as figures and pictures scrolled across his vision. Most of the data was textual and symbolic, the better to crowd into the memory allocation, and he frowned thoughtfully as he scanned it. The world maintained an imperial post with what sounded like very limited landing facilities, but it wasn't even an associate member—just a place where the Empire had planted its flag.
    "It's one of ours," he stated carefully.
    "Nominally, Your Highness. Nominally," Pahner snorted. "There's a port, but no repair facilities—certainly none capable of repairing one of these assault ships. There's an automated refueling post over one of the gas giants which is owned by TexAmP, but the port is locally managed. Out on the back of beyond like it is, who knows what's actually going on?"
    Pahner consulted his own toot and frowned much more unhappily than Roger had.
    "The only intel note I have on the region is that the Saints might be active out here. On the other hand, Your Highness, out here on the frontier about half the time you turn around there's a Saint SpecOps team nosing under the tent." He smiled faintly. "Of course, they probably feel the same way about us."
    Pahner consulted his notepad, with its much greater memory, and frowned again.
    "The locals are hostile and primitive, the fauna is vicious, the mean temperature is thirty-three degrees centigrade, and it rains five times a day. The region is notorious for Dream Spice smuggling, and piracy is rampant. Of course." He shook his head. "Frankly, Your Highness, I feel like I'm taking you down Fourteenth Street at oh-three hundred on a Saturday night in August dressed in thousand-credit chips."
    Fourteenth Street had been in existence since the days when Imperial City had been the District of Columbia, the capital of the former United States, and it had never been a good place to wander. But that was the last thing on Roger's mind at this particular moment, and he rubbed his face and sighed.
    "Is there any good news?" The question had a note of a whine in it, and he kicked himself for being such a shit. Everyone else was busting their butts to save his sorry ass. The least he could do was not whine about the situation!
    Pahner's face tightened.
    "Well, you're still breathing, Your Highness. So I haven't failed my charge yet. And I think the Captain can get the ship to Marduk, which is a blessing. At least in a military ship they can reroute the fixed control runs, although that's going to take a week or more, with most of the Company pitching in alongside the crew to do, pardon the pun, grunt work.
    "It's good news that the senior engineer was in the compartment in the middle of the night and reacted fast enough to shut down an out of control reaction. It's good news that we're on