Simon Hawke - The Cleopatra Crisis

“Oh. God,” one of Cooper’s men said, staring at the horror lyingat his feet.

The other one fired his disruptor at it, disintegrating thesickening remains of two fused human bodies. come on, snap out of it! The wholehouse must’ve heard that scream!”

Indeed, the whole house had. In that moment, the element ofsurprise so necessary to the speedy conclusion of the raid was lost. Hollisterheard the scream and came awake instantly. rolling out of bed and lunging forhis weapon. He was already shouting out a warning at the top of his lungs ashis fingers closed around it and he went running out into the hall barefoot,dressed only in his tunic The guards outside Cleopatra’s bedroom immediatelyran inside to seize their hostage and were dismayed to see the bed empty. Theywasted valuable seconds looking for her around the room. By the time they heardthe sounds behind them, it was already too late. The stun darts struck them asthey turned and collapsed to the floor.

Outside on the grounds, laser beams crisscrossed in the darknessas the firelight erupted between the S.O.G. men on security duty and the men ofCooper’s unit. As Delaney. Steiger, and Andre clocked into the peristylum , they could already hear the sounds of shouting and running feet.

“God damn it!” said Delaney. “Come on. let’s move !”

They ran across the open space of the courtyard, heading towardthe servants’ quarters.

“Watch it!” Andre shouted.

She dove to the ground and rolled as a laser beam stabbedthrough the air above her and fired as she came up. One of the S.O.G. men fell.Delaney dropped another one and they kept going, moving as quickly as theycould, the adrenaline pounding through their systems.

Hollister spotted three men moving down the corridor andfired without hesitation. Two of Cooper’s men fell dead, one of them the manarmed with the disruptor. The third man brought up his stunner and fired, butHollister quickly ducked behind a column and fired. The third man went down.

Laser beams made a webwork of light in the atrium as the twoopposing forces met in the central hall. Cooper’s team had taken casualties,but the S.O.G. men in the grounds had all been dealt with and the fight nowmoved entirely indoors. Several of the household slaves ran screaming in terrordown the corridors and were dropped by stun darts, though a few ran directlyinto the path of laser and disruptor beams and ceased to exist. Others coweredfearfully in their quarters, convinced the world was coming to an end, while afew simply dropped down to their knees in supplication before the invadingdemons and were quickly tranked.

Outside. Simmons moved carefully across the grounds. crouchinglow and taking advantage of the darkness, holding his laser pistol ready. Hiswarp disc was already preprogrammed with his escape coordinates. Screw the others,he thought. Who needs them? This was the perfect opportunity. In all theconfusion, he could slip in and nail Steiger. then be gone before anybodyrealized what had happened. He bent over the body of one of Cooper’s men.Perfect. He quickly stripped off his own clothes and started putting on thecorpse’s T.C.I. fatigues. He slipped the black Balaclava hood over his head,then smiled as he picked up the disruptor. Hollister came bursting into Cleopatra’sroom, then stopped as he saw the unconscious bodies of his men lying on thefloor. There was no sign of Cleopatra. Somehow, incredibly, they had managed toget her out. He couldn’t believe it. He heard running footsteps coming down thehall. He quickly punched in a preprogrammed sequence of transition coordinatesand clocked out just as Delaney came diving through the doorway, firing hisstunner. The dart passed harmlessly through empty air.

Lucas waited tensely, glancing every couple of seconds atthe readout on his warp disc. The time was almost up. Andell had clocked toPlus Time with Caesar and Calpurnia, as had Castelli and Corwin. withCleopatra. It would take days for them to be properly conditioned by the psychteams at TAC-HQ, but then they would be clocked back to Minus Time so that onlyone minute would have passed since they’d been gone. They would reappear,sedated. safely in their own beds. They would wake up several, hours later.completely oblivious of what had happened to them.

As soon as the operation at Cleopatra’s house was concluded,assuming that it was concluded successfully, the survivors would be clocked toPlus Time and interrogated under drugs. The household slaves would then he separatedfrom any surviving S.O.G. infiltrators. Castelli would take charge of a teamthat would clock out to ancient Egypt. where they would purchase slaves thatwould replace the S.O.G. men. Once those slaves had been acquired from themarkets in Alexandria. they would then be tranked and clocked to Plus Time,when: they would be conditioned to believe that they had been in the Queen of Egypt’sservice all along. Cleopatra herself would be conditioned to believe that theyhad come to Rome with her. Then Castelli and his team would clock back in withthem, all before daybreak.

Cleopatra would remember nothing of what had happened toher. She would recall meeting Marcus Septimus and his wife, Antonia, though shewould believe that they had left Rome. Both Caesar and Calpurnia would recallhow he had dismissed his Egyptian bodyguard because he did not wish to give theappearance that he feared his enemies or that he was too much under theinfluence of a foreign queen.

In a matter of seconds. Lucas thought, if all goes well.Caesar and his wife would reappear in their bed and they would wake up in themorning as if nothing had ever happened. Cleopatra and her new slaves would beclocked back into her house.

They had put the plan together quickly. but it seemed toLucas as if they’d covered every contingency. At least, he hoped they had.Everything hinged on the assault against the S.O.G. unit at Cleopatra’s housebeing successful. Lucas checked the time again. Another few seconds. Heswallowed nervously. Had they covered everything? All right. he thought, comeon. What have we missed? What else can go wrong?

Hollister materialized inside the quarters assigned to hismen at the imperial palace. And froze. absolutely stunned. He recovered quicklyand glanced around, sweeping his weapon around the room, but Bryant and histeam had already left. He had missed encountering them by scant seconds, hemoved quickly to the door leading to the corridor and listened intently.Everything seemed quiet. For a moment, he simply stood there, not moving. Herisked a glance out into the corridor. There was no sign of his men. They wereall gone, every last one of them. Jesus, Hollister thought. they must have hitthe palace and the house at the same time! He was staggered by their audacity.They must have clocked into the palace, and while Caesar slept just a shortdistance down the hall, they had killed every one of his men and gotten outagain, a lightning operation, brilliantly executed and devastatingly efficient.He had never dreamed they would dare take such a risk. He had vastlyunderestimated them and it had cost him. It had cost him everything.

His mind reeled as he realized that his operation wastotally undone. All that work, all that preparation, wiped out in just onenight. It was beyond belief. How in hell had they managed to snatch Cleopatra?And how could they cover everything that they had done without risking atemporal disruption? He had to think. He had to put himself in their shoes andimagine what he might have done if he were in their place. And if he weredesperate enough to try something like this. Desperate. hell. he told himself,the bastards had actually pulled it off.

All right, he thought, if they snatched Cleopatra, theycould do a wash job on her brain. Program her and she’d come out believingwhatever they wanted her to believe. They’d have to do the same with Caesar.Make him believe that he’d dismissed the bodyguard. God damn it. it’ll work,thought Hollister, They’ve beaten us.