United States or Kuwait ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Took a couple of hits from ground batteries getting off, and from ships around Moonbase getting in. Ships of the Royal Mardukan Navy!" he added furiously. The pinnace in which they had made the trip to Tanith had taken a few hits, too, running the blockade. Not many; her captain had thrown her into hyperspace almost at once. "They sent the yacht off to Gimli," Bentrik said.
Then, slowly, he repeated his screen-combination twice. "Come in, Moonbase; this is Simon Bentrik, Prince-Protector, speaking." He waited ten seconds, and was about to start again, when the screen flickered. The man who appeared in it wore the insignia of a Mardukan navy commodore. He needed a shave, but he was grinning happily. Bentrik greeted him by name. "Hello, Simon; glad to see you.
Even with the threat from Xochitl, some of the former Wardshaven nobles began talking about sending ships to Gram. Less than a thousand hours after he had left, Ravallo was back in the Black Star. "I went to Gimli, and I wasn't there fifty hours before a Mardukan Navy ship came in. They were glad to see me; it saved them sending off a pinnace for Tanith.
By now, the odds were that Makann was as much his prisoner as King Mikhyl VIII had been Makann's. "So Dunnan has conquered Marduk. All he has to do, now, is make it stick," he said. "I see four ships off Moonbase; how many more have they?" "These are Bolide and Eclipse, Dunnan's ships, and former Royal Mardukan Navy ships Champion and Guardian.
Karffard wondered if they hadn't better wait till they got to Gimli and discuss it with the others. "No," Trask told him. "This is the flagship; here's where the strategy is decided." "Well, how about the Mardukan Navy?" Captain Rainer asked. "I think Fleet Admiral Bargham's in command at Gimli."
"You mean, he's making a string of terror-raids on their trade planets, hoping to pull the Mardukan space-navy away from the home planet?" Harkaman had stopped being incredulous. "And when he gets them all lured away, he'll make a fast raid?" "That's what I think. Remember our fundamental postulate: Dunnan is crazy.
Trask and the Mardukan were shaking hands with themselves at each other in their screens; everybody in the Nemesis command room was screaming: "Well shot, Victrix! Well shot!" Then the Yo-Yo was coming around again, and Vann Larch was saying, "Gehenna with this fooling around! I'll fix the expurgated unprintability!"
They may thank you for bringing me back to stand trial," Bentrik said bitterly. "Why, I'd have anybody shot who let his ship get caught as I did mine. Those two were down in atmosphere before I knew they'd come out of hyperspace." "I think they were down on the planet before your ship arrived." "Oh, that's ridiculous, Prince Trask!" the Mardukan cried. "You can't hide a ship on a planet.
This left Trask wondering if the Mardukan constitution hadn't been devised by Goldberg, the legendary Old Terran inventor who always did everything the hard way. It also left him wondering just how in Gehenna the Government of Marduk ever got anything done. Maybe it didn't. Maybe that was what saved Marduk from having a real despotism.
The ostensible owners claimed, and had papers to prove it, that they had chartered her to a private trader, and he claimed, and had papers to prove it, that he was a citizen of the Planetary Republic of Aton, and as soon as they began questioning him, he was rescued by the Atonian ambassador, who lodged a vehement protest with the Mardukan Foreign Ministry.
Word Of The Day