Read Online Mission: Earth "Doomed Planet" by Ron L. Hubbard - Free Book Online

to what the penalty would be. With care, he had built himself into a dominant position and, with care, he could have built it into Emperor. He might have even made it without a body and regalia, given enough dope to use on a conclave of Lords. But in some way he could not explain, he had been plunged forward too fast. He did not understand that it had happened through alcohol and LSD. But however it had happened, of one thing he was sure: Heads were going to roll! Curses were issuing from him in torrents. He was • enraged beyond any rage he had ever felt before. He was actually quite deadly. He still had troops, he still had guns: he held the center of government. People were going to pay! And pay in blood! A cold shower did not help much. Lacking any other clothes, he got back into his scarlet general's uniform. He went into the antechamber: it was cluttered but empty. He got into his desk and found some speed and heroin and gave himself a speedball, a powerful mixture of the two. Almost at once he felt better, even more deadly but more in control. Factually, at times of crisis such as now, Lombar Hisst was something to reckon with. The Apparatus General Staff had taken a large chamber at the front of the building. Lombar hit buzzers and very soon those who were at Palace City, the bulk of his generals, were sitting in the antechamber. "Now, give me your situation reports," snarled Lombar. And in the next ten minutes he competently ordered a redisposition of troops without even touching his invasion staging areas. The generals were suddenly much heartened and barked orders into their own radios for relay. The population would soon be on the run. The general who had awakened him was glancing at his watch and Lombar glared at him with annoyance. "It's the Homeview," the man said. "It's coming on in thirty seconds. May I activate the set?" Lombar snarled at him to go ahead. The picture was a running battle between retreating Apparatus tanks and a mob using airtrucks that didn't seem to care what happened to them. At Homeview, a monitor switched and showed street fighting in the capital of Mistin against a background of smoke and flame. Suddenly, without erasing the Homeview panorama, a second, brighter picture came on. It was an overplay. That meant it was not coming from the Homeview studios: it was not even coming on Homeview lines. It was being battered into the network by some remote transmitter that might be anywhere, most probably in outer space.
    HIGHTEE HELLER!
    Behind her were pipes and dials that were probably the back of the bridge of a spaceship. Her eyes were very intense. Her voice was strong and clear. "Citizens of the Voltar Confederacy! Hear me! His Majesty Cling the Lofty is ALIVE! It was at his express command and wish that my brother, Royal Officer Jet-tero Heller, rescued him from captivity by Lombar Hisst. "The Chief of the Apparatus murdered legitimate successors to the throne. Then, by the use of poisons called drugs, he suborned the Grand Council and through this treachery has sought to usurp the throne! "At the ancient fortress of Spiteos, long since believed abandoned and radioactive, Hisst has stored enough drugs to poison this entire nation. And he intends to do so! "Here in my hands you see the Royal regalia: the scepter, chains and crown." She held them up. "Army, Fleet, police, officials and citizens! Cast off the usurper! Rally to His Majesty and my brother Jettero Heller!
    "DESTROY THE APPARATUS AND LOMBAR HISST!"
    The picture went off, leaving the background view of running citizens and flames which had continued throughout. "Oh, my Gods," said a general. "We're finished! It was bad enough without that!" And then Lombar Hisst showed why Lombar Hisst, the commoner, had come so far. "Turn on the Army and Fleet command channels!" he barked. A general grabbed levers on another console. The Army General Staff channel was live. He shunted the incoming signal through a decoder. "… and I don't