"The Nidu are firing," Picks said, and switched his video feed to one of Lehane's monitors.
"At us?" Lehane asked.
"Not yet," Picks said. "It looks like they're going after the pods."
Lehane watched as rockets flared silently from the Nidu gun-ship, followed a few seconds later by erupting flashes as the rockets hit their marks.
Come on Creek, Lehane thought. Make it through.
"Holy shit" Picks said, staring at his monitor.
"What is it?" Lehane said.
Picks looked up at his captain with a wide-open grin. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said, and sent the feed to Lehane.
Lehane looked down at his monitor again. Picks was right. He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.
It was a UNE naval destroyer, about three times the size of the Nidu gunship.
"Here comes the cavalry," Lehane said.
Creek felt himself yanked forward as the lifepod finally launched. Robin cried out in a mixture of terror, surprise, and gratitude. The last few minutes had been extremely noisy and mysterious; after the grenades there had been an immense grinding sound, followed by muffled shouting, followed by a bang and what sounded like a tornado, followed by complete and total silence and then their pod pushing away from the Neverland. Creek had had more enervating slices of time in his life, those two days on the Plain of Pajmhi among them, but these last minutes were definitely in the top five.
Creek unbuckled from his seat and floated to the porthole in the sudden zero gravity. Out the porthole Creek could see a vacuum door on the Promenade Deck where a window used to be.
"That son of a bitch," Creek said, with admiration. "He shot them into space." If he made it out of this alive, he was definitely going to buy Lehane a drink.
The lifepod engines kicked on; Creek hauled himself back into his seat until they stopped firing. Once they had, Creek unlatched again and went back to the portal.
"What do you see?" Robin said.
"Lifepods coming off the Neverland," Creek said. "Lots of them. Do you want to look?"
"I don't think so," Robin said. "This zero gravity thing is not so good for my stomach."
Creek noticed a flash of light on the periphery of the porthole and then another closer to the center. "Uh-oh," he said.
"What?" Robin asked.
"I think the Nidu are firing on the lifepods," Creek said.
"Of course they are," Robin said. "We're still alive, Harry. That just won't do." There was a bitter edge to her voice that Creek felt was entirely justified at this point.
Another flash, much closer now, and then another. And then another, less than a kilometer away.
"Maybe I will take a look," Robin said, and tugged on her belt straps. "Sitting here isn't helping my stomach any."
"You might want to stay in your seat," Creek said.
"Why?" Robin asked.
Creek was about to answer when something large took over a significant chunk of the porthole field of view.
"Never mind what I just said," Creek said. "You're definitely going to want to see this."
Robin unhooked and swam her way to the porthole. "What am I looking at?" She asked.
"The very large UNE ship," Creek said, pointing. "Right there. And just in time."
"What do you mean, 'just in time'?" Robin said. "It would be 'just in time' if we were still on the Neverland. As far as I'm concerned, they're a little late."
"Trust me," Creek said, and looked out the porthole again to see if there were any more flashes, which signified exploding lifepods. There weren't. "They're just in time."
The lifepod suddenly shook violently.
"What was that?" Robin said.
"Atmosphere," Creek said. "We're on our way to the Chagfun surface. Time to strap in, Robin. This next part's going to get bumpy."
Chapter 15
In one of those coincidences that would be ridiculous if they weren't entirely true, Creek and Robin's lifepod launched from the Neverland at almost precisely the moment the time limit for the auf-Getag clan to begin the coronation ceremony expired. What followed next was a power grab so quick, so balletic in its balance, grace, and speed that the Medicis, the Borgias, and all their equivalents across time and space, had they the knowledge, would have risen from their graves to provide its mastermind with a standing ovation.
At the time of the expiration plus some infinitesimal fraction of a second, the Nidu computer system deployed the instruction set enacted when no heir from the current clan on the throne ascends in time. The power of supreme access, previously locked in trust for the presumptive auf-Getag heir, was now dissolved and major functions of the Nidu political administrations apportioned to the ministers and generals who made up the highest level of the Nidu government. From this second until a challenger successfully assumed the throne, no single Nidu was in charge of the entire government.
At time plus two minutes (to use human time measurements), Ghad-auf-Getag, Supreme Commander of Nidu Military and uncle to the previously presumptive but now merely potential heir to the throne Hubu-auf-Getag, found his head being yanked backward to expose his throat. For the two minutes previous, Ghad-auf-Getag had sole administrative control of the Nidu military, without oversight from the Nidu Fehen—because there was none. Ghad-auf-Getag had not used those two minutes particularly well; for their entire span he been squatting above a Nidu toilet trough, expelling the remains of the previous day's lunch.
This left him particularly vulnerable to attack when his two bodyguards entered his lavatory and drew their knives—ceremonial knives Ghad-auf-Getag had presented both a year previously as a token often Nidu years (roughly fifteen Earth years) of loyal and devoted service. Both bodyguards had been promised colonial regional governorships by Narf-win-Getag; both had decided that Narf-win-Getag's offer beat a nice knife. One of those knives was stuck in Ghad-auf-Getag's throat; a few seconds later the second cut him from waist to mid-chest.
Ghad-auf-Getag's bodyguards were brutally efficient in dispatching their master; by t-plus three minutes and thirty seconds all of Ghad-auf-Getag's brain activity had ceased, triggering the implant he like all high-level government officials carried in his body to transmit the fact of his death to the Nidu computer network.
With the death of Ghad-auf-Getag, the administrative powers he controlled were instantaneously and automatically portioned off to his immediate subordinates, the chiefs of staff of the respective arms of the Nidu military—except for the control of Nidu's Glar-classs destroyers, which Ghad-auf-Getag and the previous Fehen Wej-auf-Getag believed was too important to be left to a mere chief of staff. Ghad-auf-Getag kept control of the Glar destroyers himself and cut them out of the chain of command. And so, when he collapsed to the tiles of his lavatory, bled out, control of the Glar destroyers devolved directly to their individual commanders.
Six of whom Narf-win-Getag had been able to buy.
At t-plus five minutes—and in a truly remarkable bit of synchronization—both the the Lud-Cho-Getag and the Jubb-Gah-Getag, the two Glar destroyers UNE Defense had been tracking from the start, emerged in Earth space in an unauthorized and unscheduled appearance and immediately warmed up their weapons. UNE Defense commanders had been briefed on the possibility of the appearance of the two cruisers and the further possibility—probability—that they would not be stopping by for a friendly spot of tea. What they were not told to expect was that the two ships would appear in Earth space within thirty seconds of each other, a bit of coordination that was an unheard-of feat of planning and power distribution to n-space engines, considering that the ships had come from entirely different limbs of known space, and were known to have entered n-space at nearly exactly the same time. The appearance of both simultaneously gave Earth defense planners no time to counter.