Part 24
Stand, Navy, out to sea, "Fight!" our battle cry;
We'll never change our course, So vicious foe steer shy-y-y-y.
Roll out the TNT, Anchors Aweigh. Sail on to victory
And sink their bones to Davy Jones, hooray!
-- George D. Lottman, 1930
Once again, Chandria found herself stuck in the control room of the Jericho watching others work to secure her throne. This time, however, the action wasn't taking place on a remote, isolated planet, but in the Warriors' Stronghold on Ch'ton itself. The holo projector displayed a detailed schematic of the building, and Chandria could make out the others' progress represented by little green dots as they moved towards the Warlord's office.
She heard Vic mutter to himself as he worked to keep the team clear of obstacles, living or otherwise. Chandria had noticed that Vic's translator had refused to translate some of the words he was saying, but based on his expression, she thought that was probably for the best. Vic had not been happy with Dick's plan or his part in it. The two men had argued most of the trip back to Ch'ton. Finally, though, Vic had to acknowledge Dick's basic point -- this plan had the best chance of achieving all of their objectives. It was risky, but Dick felt (and Chandria agreed) that the risks were not insurmountable.
"Jericho, this is Cardinal Ximinez18," Dick's cheerful whisper announced through the speakers. "We are in position."
Chandria involuntarily smiled at Dick's choice of codenames. When Dick had first suggested them, she thought Roy was going to die from lack of oxygen because he was laughing so hard. At least she had finally seen what they called "The Spanish Inquisition Sketch," which was odd since it wasn't a drawing at all but a sort of play. Once they explained some of the history behind the real Spanish Inquisition, it made a little more sense, but she still couldn't say she understood it.
"I read you, Ximinez. I show ten hostiles between you and the package," replied Vic.
"Roger, Jericho. We're goin' in."
Through Dick's open channel, Chandria could hear the sounds of fighting, punctuated by soft grunts by Dick, as he must have taken some blows and some yelling by the Ch'ton guards. After several minutes, the background sounds died down.
"Jericho, Ximinez." Dick's voice was still cheerful, if slightly winded. "We have the package. Was he able to trigger any alarms?"
"Ximinez, affirmative on the alarms. I show three groups of hostiles converging on your position. Principle escape route is still open at this time, though."
"Roger, Jericho. Okay group, let's move it. Remember, we need to get outside."
Chandria watched the little green dots, plus a blue dot representing the Warlord, begin their descent through the building.
"Jericho, Ximinez. How's it look outside?"
"Still clear, Ximinez," Vic replied.
After a few more minutes, Vic contacted Dick. "Ximinez, Jericho. A group of hostiles has appeared on the perimeter outside the building."
"Roger. What about our playmates inside?"
"They're about five minutes behind you."
"Roger that."
A few minutes later, the green and blue dots were at the building's entrance.
"Jericho, Ximinez. I think we're set here. Keep your fingers crossed."
"Roger, Ximinez," muttered Vic darkly.
Vic pressed some buttons on his console, and the schematic disappeared and was replaced with a bird's-eye view of the outside courtyard of the Stronghold. Chandria could see that two phalanx of warriors were assembled there already and were cautiously approaching the building.
Out of the building walked seven figures. At the front was a group of three that she assumed were Dick, Garth, and Tongear. Since she could only see the tops of their heads, it was difficult to tell which one was which, as all three had black hair. They were followed by two groups of two, each consisting of a red-haired man and a black-haired woman. She thought she could make out Roy's bow in the middle group, so that made the woman with him Donna, which meant the last group was Toni and Wally.
"Put down your weapons and surrender!" she heard through Dick's comm unit.
"No, you stay back, or your precious Warlord dies!" Dick announced. Then, in a softer voice, "All right, Jericho, pull us up -- Cardinal Biggles first."
"Roger, Ximinez," Vic said.
As Chandria watched, Toni and Wally disappeared from sight. In a few seconds, she heard someone behind her, and the two Titans walked in to join her, Raven, and Vic. Vic nodded in greeting.
"Ximinez, Jericho. Biggles is aboard."
"Roger, Jericho. Cardinal Fang is next." Donna and Roy were the next to disappear from the screen. They soon entered the control room as well.
"Ximinez, Jericho. Fang is aboard. Your turn."
"Roger, Jericho." Dick then said in a louder voice. "I'm sorry we've had to cut our visit so short, but maybe there'll be another time. Okay, Jericho." Dick and Garth disappeared from the screen, leaving the Warlord to stand there as his warriors hurriedly joined him.
In a few moments, Dick poked his head through the open control room door. "Vic, pipe this through to the briefing room. Let's move this meeting there, folks, and give him some elbow room. Also, Vic, let me know if anything burps in our direction."
Vic nodded, and everyone else but Toni left the control room. Chandria saw the other woman squeeze Vic's arm gently as she sat in the chair Chandria had just vacated. Vic's mouth turned up in a smile, and he said something Chandria didn't quite catch. Toni laughed.
When Chandria joined the others in the briefing room, she could see that Vic had managed to include audio as well as visual on the scene outside of the Stronghold. The Warlord was doing a great deal of shouting, but no one seemed able to give him any answers.
"... What do you mean they just disappeared?! Six enemy soldiers penetrate our security and then just disappear without a trace? FIND THEM!"
While the Warlord was shouting, a figure had separated from the pack of warriors and positioned himself in front of the Warlord. When the Warlord paused, he spoke.
"Warlord Tongear," said Gareth, "I hereby challenge your fitness to continue to hold the office of Warlord!"
"Now it's really gonna hit the fan," Roy muttered as they watched. "Anybody for popcorn?"
"How dare you!" screamed Tongear.
"Sir, I dare! During your tenure, we have lost colony worlds and a large portion of the Home Fleet! More heinously, we have had one queen murdered and another kidnapped! How can you stand there, sir, after having nearly been kidnapped yourself, and claim to deserve your office?"
"Oooh, good one!" muttered Donna. The other Titans nodded in agreement.
The Warlord's mouth moved, but nothing seemed to be coming out of it. Finally, he said, "Very well, I accept your challenge."
"Your terms, sir?"
"Swords," Tongear stated flatly. Then he paused. Chandria wished she could see his face.
Before he could say anything else, Gareth replied, "Swords, it is. I assume it will be here in the courtyard at the traditional time of dawn?"
The Warlord nodded jerkily. Gareth bowed slightly and then walked away.
~~~~~~~~~~
The next morning, Dick watched Gareth as he warmed up in the Jericho's tiny gym. Dick knew they had caught Tongear off-guard and off-balance, but once the older warrior had a chance to think about what had happened, he would be dangerous. So Dick had persuaded Gareth to spend the night aboard the Jericho just in case the older warrior decided his opponent should meet with an "unfortunate accident."
When Gareth finished his initial stretching exercises, he nodded to Chandria who brought him his armor and helped him don it. She had insisted, pointing out that he had none of his warrior-brothers to help him, and that since he was fighting her fight, she wanted some part in it. Obviously recognizing a losing argument when he saw one, Gareth agreed; although, Dick thought he was secretly pleased. There certainly did seem to be a special, different kind of intimacy between them as she helped him strap on the somewhat-bulky breastplate. It wasn't the intimacy of lovers; rather it was a bond between two soldiers who knew they might never see each other alive.
The Ch'ton swordfighter's traditional armor consisted of lightweight plating covering the chest, loins, upper arms, and thighs. Its purpose was not to protect the fighter completely -- the swords could still penetrate -- it was to protect the fighter from being incapacitated by glancing blows from the wickedly sharp sword. The fighters wore no protection on their heads, as blows to the head were generally fatal anyway.
Once Gareth donned his armor, he continued his warm-up drills, accustoming his body to the additional weight of the armor. Dick thought he looked good; he glanced over at Donna, and she nodded her head at him. Finally, Gareth finished. He wiped his face with the towel Wally handed to him and walked over to Chandria. Dick and the others stepped away to give them some privacy. Gareth knelt in front of his queen. He said something to her, and she laughed. She then bent down and kissed him gently on his forehead and on either cheek.
When he stood up again, she held onto his arm, and standing up on tiptoes, she kissed him full on the lips. He stared at her for a moment, and she said loudly enough for all of them to hear, "And that's to remind you not to get yourself killed down there!"
Raven then stepped forward, and Gareth approached her somewhat tentatively. He had looked at Dick in disbelief when Dick explained how they were going to get him back on the planet. One of the objectives of their mission the previous day had been to find a small, unused room that Raven could transport Gareth into. Dick was reluctant to use the Jericho's transporters, because materializing inside a building was a tricky business without some kind of targeting device. Targeting devices could be detected. All Raven needed was the location.
Gareth was still nervous about suddenly appearing in the Stronghold from out of nowhere. For some reason, Dick's point that it really didn't matter because Gareth would either be dead or Warlord before anyone got around to noticing didn't comfort him.
As Raven approached Gareth, she said with one of her rare smiles, "As Chandria has told you, this may be a little disconcerting, but I won't hurt you. If you like, you can close your eyes." She wrapped her "cloak" around him, and the two disappeared from sight.
The Titans hurried into the briefing room just in time to hear Gareth's voice come through the speakers.
"Jericho, looks like I got here in one piece. Thanks, Raven."
"Understood," Dick replied.
A few moments later, Raven's glowing soul self reappeared aboard the Jericho.
Vic had managed to tap into one of the Stronghold's security monitors, so they had a much better view of the courtyard as Gareth walked out of the building. It was still rather dark, but a fairly large crowd had already gathered near a clearly defined circle in the courtyard. When they caught sight of him, the murmuring of the crowd grew in volume. Gareth had said he expected to have quite a few supporters in the audience, but none of them would endanger their lives or their futures by openly cheering him since Tongear was known to have a long memory and little tolerance of any who slighted him.
Gareth took up his position on the east side of the circle, just inside the line. A few moments later, Tongear walked out of the Stronghold and stood on the west side. An elderly worker-caste man, dressed in glittering robes, broke away from the crowd and stood at the north, a foot or so outside the circle. The Titans looked at Chandria for an explanation.
"That's the Archpriest. He is there to make sure that both parties obey the rules of the challenge and to certify the winner."
"What are the rules?" asked Wally.
"In a swordfight, there are only two -- stay inside the circle and no blows to the back."
At a gesture from the Archpriest, Gareth and Tongear met at the center of the circle, their swords held out in front of them. In a loud voice, at odds with his slight stature, he shouted, "Begin!"
The two men stood silently, blades almost touching as they studied each other. Almost a minute went by while the fighters stood locked in some kind of psychological battle. Finally, almost too quickly to make out, Tongear brought his sword down in a crashing blow that would have taken Gareth's hand off had he been where Tongear expected him to be. Gareth danced back out of the way and aimed his own sword at Tongear's unprotected side while the older man was off-balance. Tongear was able to bring his sword back in time to prevent a killing blow, but everyone heard the scrape of sword against armor.
Gareth had Tongear on the defensive, and he kept him there, never allowing the older man to regroup to initiate another attack. Tongear was able to keep Gareth from striking his armor again, but he was beginning to wear down. The older man was obviously in good shape, but Gareth was in better shape and was faster as well.
Finally, it happened. Tongear had blocked one of Gareth's feints but was too slow coming off the block to deflect the real blow. Gareth plunged his sword through the armor into Tongear's chest for a perfect heart-shot. The older warrior's mouth opened in pain and shock; he looked down at his chest and then fell to his knees. Gareth pulled out his sword, and Tongear toppled over on his back. A slight bubble of blood trickled out of his mouth, and he stopped breathing.
The Archpriest walked over to Tongear and felt his neck for a pulse. He then bowed his head, murmured something, and then passed his hand over Tongear's face, closing the man's eyelids. He then walked over to Gareth who stood with his still-bloody sword tip down in the sand. Gareth knelt. The Archpriest then laid his hand on the new Warlord and said something that the monitor didn't quite catch. Gareth then stood, turned to the crowd, and raised his arms in triumph. The crowd cheered.
~~~~~~~~~~
"... And that's the way it ended up, sir," Dick said to the astonished admiral in front of him. "I think Gareth had Tongear so off-balance, the Warlord picked swords without really thinking about it. Gareth took Tongear out in less than thirty minutes."
Admiral Hamish Alexander had been startled enough when the Jericho had suddenly arrived at Midway. The former Ch'ton colony turned Naval base and supply station had almost scrambled fighters to intercept the mysterious ship until Vic was able to give the base the proper recognition codes. Dick, Vic, and Garth then walked into headquarters, and Dick requested a meeting with the admiral and his most trusted aides. Vic and Dick then gave a moderately complete summary of all their activities from the point at which Dick had been declared MIA.
Garth then stepped forward holding two large pieces of paper. "Admiral, we would request that, wherever feasible, you suspend all current attack operations while we are on our way back to Earth to have this peace treaty signed and ratified." He gave one of the pages to the admiral.
"Peace treaty?" Alexander squawked. "But how ...? On whose authority...?"
"Mine, admiral," stated Garth, calmly. "I am a member of the peace talks committee, after all. I am completely familiar with the terms we were going to propose. I think you'll find everything in order."
Alexander quickly skimmed the treaty. He then looked back up at the Atlantean. "This certainly seems complete -- except for one thing. I know the Mexican government has been particularly insistent that some sort of reparation must be made. They were putting a great deal of pressure on Washington not to agree to any terms that left that out. I see no mention of reparations of any sort in here."
Garth and the others exchanged wry glances. "The queen and the new Warlord are determined that none of their people find out that the previous queen was murdered by the former Warlord," Garth said. "They are willing to characterize the queen's death as an 'accident,' but they feel it would be unwise to admit to any kind of wrong in the bombing, including the payment of reparations." He held up his hand as Alexander attempted to speak. "However, the queen, in celebration of the peace between our two worlds, is offering a gift," he handed the second piece of paper to Alexander, "As best we can calculate, it comes to the same amount as the committee was seeking in reparations."
"A gift," Alexander said in bemusement.
"In celebration of peace," Garth replied mock-solemnly. He continued, more seriously, "As you can see, the queen has already signed the treaty. The Ch'ton have pledged to maintain a cease-fire until the United Nations ratifies the treaty also, but it would certainly be easier if we weren't attacking them."
"What kind of guarantees do we have that they'll abide by a cease-fire?" asked Alexander, not unreasonably.
Vic said under his breath, "Now, Donna." A form began materializing in the admiral's office.
Garth said in counterpoint, "Their new Warlord will be coming with us to present the treaty."
When Gareth had materialized, he looked around alertly and then walked toward the others. Dick made the introductions.
"Gareth, ... excuse me, Tonreth, this is Admiral Hamish Alexander, commander-in-chief of the Navy's Second Space Fleet. Admiral this is Warlord Tonreth, Prince-Consort of the Ch'ton." The former Gareth bowed slightly; the admiral nodded his head in greeting.
"Admiral, I am pledging my life and my safety that we will instigate no new attacks on your people. I have given my commanders permission to defend themselves, however. In my opinion, it would be best if no need for defense arose." Vic had been able to rig a small translator unit for Tonreth, so that he would be able to communicate independently of the Titans. It was a little confusing having two voices come from Tonreth's body simultaneously, but the English words were understandable.
The admiral nodded. "Very well. I will notify my captains that operations are suspended indefinitely. I'll await word of your trip from Washington." He handed the treaty back to Garth.
Dick said, "Thank you, sir! Admiral, about my status ..."
Alexander smiled. "Well, Grayson, since you're still officially MIA, I certainly can't order you to stay here. In fact, I'm sure it would be in the best interests of efficiency for you to get your status worked out in Washington in person."
Dick grinned in response. "And the Chaffee?"
"I'll let them know, unofficially of course, that you turned up alive."
"Thank you, sir!" Dick drew himself to attention and, with the others, walked out of the room.
~~~~~~~~~~
The closer they got to the solar system, the more often Dick found himself looking at the Jericho's communications equipment. Finally, when they were passing Jupiter, Donna grabbed his shoulder in an iron grip and plopped him down in a seat in front of the comm unit.
"Would you call home already?! You're going to drive us all crazy!" she exclaimed.
Dick smiled up at her ruefully and made the familiar connections necessary to contact Oracle's equipment. According to the display on the console, it was around 3:00 a.m. in Gotham on February 14, so he wasn't too surprised when Tim answered the call.
"Tim ..." he started until Tim's yell interrupted him.
"Dick! Oh my God! Where are you?"
"We just passed Jupiter's orbit, and we're on our way insystem. We'll have to stop at Heinlein Station, first, though. Um ... how's Babs?"
Tim's eyes started shifting back and forth. "Well, you see, it's like this ..."
**End Part 24 **
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18 In the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition sketch, there are three cardinals: Cardinal Ximinez of Spain played by Michael Palin, Cardinal Biggles played by Terry Jones, and Cardinal Fang played by Terry Gilliam. There are several sites that list a complete transcript of the sketch, but one of my favorites is http://www.rraz.co.uk/alexs/python/MontyPython.htm.