The Doublecross Program: Book Three of the Star Risk Series by Chris Bunch

Author:Chris Bunch [Bunch, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781440553806
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
Published: 2012-09-01T06:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FIVE

Hore and his ranking officers roused their battalion an hour before dawn, always a propitious time for a palace revolution.

In the hours before, the men and women had been armed, the supplies coming from the new arsenal to prevent suspicion, and told their duties.

The few mercenaries who still had any ideals were told that Star Risk had made a secret pact with the Khelat to doublecross everyone, including their fellow meres, in the Shaoki worlds.

This was a deceit.

At the moment.

The more rational soldiers were told that Hore thought it was time to get rid of Star Risk because they weren’t “winning the war by direct action,” and, more important, were hogging the majority of the client’s credits.

None of the various watching posts on Star Risk positions or soldiery reported anything untoward, although two LPs on the “mansion” said there’d been a flurry of ships that arrived after dusk on the roof landing platforms, but they’d trailed away within hours.

Electronic posts reported normal traffic from the high-rise.

The two critical units were Inchcape’s destroyers and the three remaining patrol boats of Vian’s unit.

All but one of the starships were comfortably grounded. Vian was dead, and Inchcape had just left on a five-day leave, according to reports from Star Risk Central.

Hore’s XO and adjutant were beginning to gloat, but Hore reminded them of Shakespeare’s lion hunter, and said the celebrations could wait until they had Star Risk’s hide properly skinned and staked out for drying.

He reported to the Shaoki Council members who’d convinced him to betray his employers that his troops were on the move.

Hore intended to cause as few casualties as possible in his coup and make one quick strike against the mansion, wait until Star Risk realized fighting back was useless, and it would all be over.

Two cargo lifters had been fitted with 200 mm medium autocannon. Keeping to the streets, they closed on the high-rise. Behind them was the rest of the battalion, all in lifters.

Shaoki civilians heard the turbine whine, peered down, saw soldiers in the streets, and made for cover.

On signal, the two lifters came up from their concealment and took the mansion area into their sights. They each fired four rounds in less than a minute.

Masonry crashed, and glass sharded down. The outer wall of the high-rise cracked and tumbled, exposing Star Risk’s innards.

The infantry lifters came in, surrounding the high-rise. There was only one slight problem:

There was no one, no one at all, in Star Risk’s quarters.

Hore was still gaping at this impossibility when Inchcape’s destroyer dropped down out of the clouds.

Two missiles spat out, were guided into Hore’s artillery.

They blew, fireballs that left little debris to cascade down.

As the missiles struck, the other destroyers and the patrol boats lifted off from their fields. Her four destroyers linked with Inchcape, and each sent one missile arcing down on Hore.

The four Star Risk operatives watched, grim-faced, from Inchcape’s bridge.

Riss had put sensors out around Hore’s barracks, two days before, when she’d figured out what the man intended.

When

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