"That's because the entire lower section is missing," Roger said. "All the stuff in there is under the known facilities. And this isn't part of the original facility; it was a later add-on." He glanced at a readout on the side of the tunnel and nodded. "That's long enough."
"I don't recognize those." Despreaux pointed at the stingships, as they crossed the chamber towards them. "Or the tanks, for that matter."
"That's because they're antiques," Rosenberg said, running his hand lovingly over the needlelike nose of the nearest. "I've only ever seen them in air shows. They date back more than a hundred years. Densoni Shadow Wolves—forty megawatt fusion bottle, nine thousand kilos of thrust, Mach Three-Point-Five or thereabouts." He touched the leading edge of one wing and sighed. "Bastards to fly. They used more aero-lift than modern ships—let them get away from you, and they went all over the sky, then hit the ground. Hard. They called them Widow-Makers."
"Not much good against Raptors, then," Roger sighed. "I thought we'd hit the jackpot."
"Oh, I dunno." Rosenberg pursed his lips. "It'll take good pilots, and I don't have fifty of those I can get in on this and be sure of security. It'd help if they're crazy, too. But basic stingship design just hasn'tchanged a lot over the last hundred years or so. Shadow Wolves are actually faster than Raptors, and, maybe, a tad more maneuverable because of the aero-surfaces. Certainly more maneuverable at high speeds; they'll pull something like thirty gees in a bank, before damping. But they sacrifice direct lift and gravity control, and the damping only brings it down to about sixteen gees at max evolution. The big difference is modern high-density fusion plants, which equates to more brute acceleration—better grav damping—and a considerably more powerful weapons fit. And, like I said, theirout-of-control maneuvers are a bitch. No neural interfaces, either." He looked over at Roger and cocked an eyebrow. "Ammo?"
"Magazine." Roger pointed to the exit corridor. "And an armory. No powered armor. Soft-suits and exoskeletons."
"They didn't have the power-tech a hundred years ago that we have now," Catrone said, striding down the corridor. "Powering ChromSten armor took too much juice. Weapons?"
"Old—really old—plasma guns," Roger replied. "Forty-kilowatt range."
"That won't do it against powered armor," Kosutic said.
"And I'm not too happy about the idea of old plasma guns," Despreaux pointed out. "Not after what happened on Marduk."
"Everything's going to have to be checked out," Roger said. "Most of it should be pretty good; no oxygen, so there shouldn't have been any degradation. And the guns may be old, Nimashet, but they weren't built by Adoula and his assholes. On the other hand, some of the stuff was stashed by Miranda herself, people—it's damned near six hundred years old. Most of the other bits and pieces were emplaced later."
"So somebody's been collecting the stuff," Catrone said. "The Association?"
"Sometimes," Roger said. "And others. But usually the Family took care of it directly. Which left the entire process with some kinks Miranda couldn't really allow for. There are some... time bombs in this thing. Like I say, some of this stuff was put up by Great Gran, using the IBI, and some of the Family have followed up over the years with more modern equipment. Like your Shadow Wolves," he said, looking at Rosenberg. "But I think..."
Roger frowned and looked up at the ceiling, clearly considering schedules.
"Yeah," he said after a moment. "Mother should already have done some upgrades. I wonder why—" He paused. "Oh, that's why. God, this woman was paranoid."
"What?" Despreaux said.
"Bitch!" Roger snapped.
"What!?"
"Oh, not you," Roger said quickly, soothingly. "Miranda. Mother, for that matter. There are... familial security protocols, I guess you'd call them, in here. God, no wonder some of the emperors've gone just a touch insane." He closed his eyes again and shook his head. "Imagine, for a moment, a thought coming out of nowhere..."
"Oh, Christ," Catrone said. "'Do you trust your family? Really, really trust them?"
"Bingo." Roger opened his eyes and looked around. "The protocols only opened up if the Emperor or Empress of the time fully trusted the people he or she was going to use to upgrade the facilities. And the people they were upgrading the facilities for. If they didn't trust them, from time to time they'd be... probed again. According to the timetable, Mother probably was being asked as often as monthly if she really trusted, well, me."
"And she didn't," Catrone said.
"Apparently not," Roger replied, tightly. "As if I didn't know that before."
"We pull this off, and she will," Marinau said. "Keep that in mind."
"Yeah," Roger said. "Yeah. And it wasn't just Mother, either. Grandfather's head just didn't work the way Miranda's—or Mom's—did. He didn't want to think about this kind of crap... so he didn't, and the Protocols jumped over him completely. That's why the stingships we've got here date clear back to before he took the Throne, although the ones at Cheyenne are more modern." His mouth twisted. "Probably because these were the ones I was most likely to get my hands on if it turned out Mom was right about me."
"But at least they're here," Despreaux pointed out.
"And because they are, we've got a chance," Rosenberg put in. "Maybe even a good one."
"We can't use the Cheyenne stingships," Roger pointed out. "Not in any sort of first wave; they're too far away. For that matter, they'd have to run a gauntlet even after the first attack. Especially after the first attack."
"And I've only got one other pilot I'd bring in on this," Rosenberg said.
"Pilots... aren't a problem," Roger replied evenly. "But we're going to have to get techs in to work on this stuff. It should be in good shape, but there's bound to be problems. There are spares here, as well."
"And we're gonna need more armor," Catrone said.
"Well, that's not a problem, either," Roger said. "Or modern weapons. The plasma guns here are ancient as hell, but they're fine for general antipersonnel work, and there are some heavy weapons the Mardukans can handle, for that matter. And we've got another source of supply. We've got over twenty heavy plasma and bead guns, and some armor, as well."
"Oh?" Catrone eyed him speculatively.
"Oh." Roger seemed unaware that the older man was looking at him. "But the big problem is, we're going to have to rehearse this, and this op's just gotten a lot bigger than we can squeeze into Greenbrier here. Somehow, we've got to bring everyone together in one place, and how the hell are we going to do that without opping every security flag Adoula has?"
"Tell you what," Catrone said suspiciously. "If you'll ante up your suppliers, we'll ante up how to rehearse. And where the techs are going to come from."
"Okay," Catrone said when he and Roger were back in the meeting room. Despreaux, Kosutic, and Marinau were going over weaponry, while Rosenberg was doing an in initial survey of the stingships and shuttles. "We need to get one thing out of the way."
"What?"
"No matter what, we're not going to oppose you, and we're not going to burn you," Catrone said. "But there are still some elements that don't think too highly of Prince Roger MacClintock."
"I'm not surprised," Roger said evenly. "I was my own worst enemy."
"They do, however, support Alexandra," Catrone continued, shaking his head. "Which could create a not-so-tiny problem, since when we take the Palace, you're going to be in control."