March to the Stars

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

"This isn't going well," Pahner said.

"Tell me something I don't know!" the Gastan yelled back as he stuck one of the short Shin swords through a spear slit and drew it back red.

The Krath had started a full-court press, and unless something changed drastically very soon, it was going to work. The assault groups had come hollering out of the trenches, piling up bodies on the already blood-soaked ground. They'd barely made it to the walls before dying, but in doing so, they'd absorbed enough of the defenders' fire to permit the main Krath force to come in behind them in successive waves. The frenzied assault had concentrated on the main gates and the walls to either side, and the third wave had managed to smash the Shin defenders on the battlements and take three sections.

The humans' contribution had mostly been to remove the leadership, and they'd done a good job. Krath companies that had made it to the wall with any officers still on their feet were rare, but even that hadn't stopped the assault. The pressure from behind each wave had driven even the most cowardly into the defenses and up the walls. Now the gates' defenders were down to holding the gate-flanking bastions and doing their best to keep any battering rams away.

"Poertena, what do you have on your side?" the captain called.

"Krat', Krat', and more Krat', Sir," the Pinopan called back even as he took aim and fired through a slit. "T'e other bastion is holding out, though."

"Captain!" Beckley shouted from one of the front slits. "You can see water coming up out of the river! On this side of the fortress!"

"Where?" the captain demanded as he stepped across to a slit beside Beckley and zoomed up the magnification on his helmet. "Never mind." After a moment, he chuckled. "Now if we can only point it out to them."

"Look behind you, you stupid bastards!" the Gastan yelled out his slit. "The river rises! The river fights for the Shin!"

"Get it unplugged!" Tral shouted. "Break that dam! Now!"

"How?" the fortress commander asked. He'd already considered the problem, and he was preparing rafts loaded with gunpowder. He had his doubts about their efficacy, yet they were the only possibility he saw. Unfortunately, even if they had any chance of success of all, they would have to be guided into place, and in another hour—less—the water would be up over the work area. It was rising faster than the boatbuilders could finish their craft.

"I don't know!" the Sere commander snarled. "Figure it out!" He glared at the distant Shin fortress and waved both false-hands in a gesture of furious anger. "We have forces on the wall. All they have to do is take Nujam and we can move in there. That's all they have to do!"

"Tallow!" the Gastan ordered, never looking away from the slit. "Look behind you! The river rises!" he bellowed as the boiling fat was poured onto the Krath troops swarming atop the battlements outside the bastion. "Go cool off there!"

"They are," Pahner panted over the rising chorus of screams that greeted the splashing fat. The Marine had just returned to the slit beside the Shin king after dealing with another threat. A Krath assault group had forced the bastion's lower doors, and it had been hot work stopping them and then throwing up a barricade. The long climb back to the top hadn't done anything for his breathing, but he could clearly see the enemy army starting to stream from the walls. It was unraveling from the rear, where the remaining forces could see the river rising to overwhelm all their worldly goods. But those on the walls could see it as well, and they were scrambling down faster than they had come up. Already the water was halfway into the tent city; by the time those on the walls reached it, the entire area would be underwater.

"All we do now is wait for them to come to the inevitable conclusion," Pahner continued. "And conserve our own people in the meantime."

"That's it." Roger dialed back the magnification of his helmet. "There are no Krath on the walls. It's all over but the negotiating."

"That should be complicated enough to go on with." Despreaux shook her head. "That army is going to come apart when it realizes its predicament."

"I'm sure the captain can handle it," Roger replied, and turned as Cord and Pedi climbed up into the small, wooden bastion, followed by the two freed serfs.

"You sat this one out," Cord observed with a grunt. "Good."

"Are you up to this, Cord?" Roger asked. The shaman still had a pronounced limp and hunched to one side when he moved, and Roger didn't much care for the sound of his breathing.

"The healer Dobrescu tells me I need to start to move around," Cord replied. "I am moving around. The ladder, I admit, was unpleasant."

"Old fool," Pedi muttered under her breath.

"And you're looking better, as well, Pedi," Roger noted. The Shin female's step had a spring that he hadn't seen in quite some time.

"Thank you, Your Highness," Pedi replied. "It's amazing what a little sleep and some wasen can do for a female's outlook."

Despreaux snorted and shook her head.

"I could never get into the whole cosmetics thing. I'm totally challenged that way."

"It's like any other weapon or armor," Pedi said with a gesture of humor. "You must practice, practice, practice."

"Oh, like sex," Despreaux observed brightly, then grinned at Roger's stifled gasp.

"That is... different with us," Pedi said somewhat primly. "We do not engage in it as... entertainment."

"Too bad." Despreaux grinned again. "You don't know what you're missing."

"Well, isn't it a nice day out?" Roger waved to the north, where a darker patch of clouds indicated approaching rain. "Volcanoes smoking, smell of sulfur on the wind, Krath army surrendering..."

"They've surrendered?" Pedi demanded excitedly.

"We haven't received a message yet," Roger admitted. "But they're off the walls. The war appears to be over."

"I look forward to slaughtering them for a change," the Shin female said darkly.

"Ah, we were intending to offer them terms," Roger pointed out. "I think it would be... difficult to kill them all. And we can probably get more for them if they're alive."

"You humans are so silly that way." Pedi's gesture bordered on contempt. "I say chop off all their heads and float the bodies down the river. They'll get the message that way."

"Well, there are alternatives," Roger said. "We could simply blind and castrate them all and then have them walk back. All except one in twenty or so that we can leave with one eye to lead the rest. Or we could fire them out of cannon; you could load them all the way to the hips in the bombards. Or we could lay planks over them, then put tables and chairs on top of the planks, sit down, and eat our dinner while they were all crushed to death. Or, best of all, we could go retake the spaceport, come back with assault shuttles, and drop jellied fuel weapons on them. They want fire, we'll give them fire."

"Roger," Despreaux said.

"Those would do," Pedi agreed. "But I can tell you're joking."

"The point is that humans quit doing that sort of thing because we're too damned good at it," Roger said. "We can do it efficiently or baroquely, using a million different methods, culled from our entire history. I doubt that Mardukans can exceed our inventiveness, although they might equal it. But taking that route never gets you anywhere; you get trapped in an eternal round of massacres and counter massacres. It's only after you break the cycle and create strong groups—nations—that enforce the laws and demand some sort of international standard of acceptable behavior, that things start to improve."

"Fine, but we're here. And it's now," the Shin protested. "And when you humans leave, the Krath will still be there. And their soldiers will still be there, and the Scourge will still be there."

"All part of the negotiations," Roger replied. "They've lost their field army. If they don't get it back, they're dead meat for the other satraps. We'll strip them of their treasure, make them pay tribute, and have them sign binding treaties against slave-raiding. We won't take the tribute to 'punish' them, but to weaken them so that they're not death threats to you. The conditions might hold, and they might not. But humans who are friendly to the Shin will also be in control of the spaceport, Pedi. If the Krath get out of hand, we can send an assault shuttle. And we will."

"What about the Scourge?" Slee asked.

"What about them?" It was the first time Roger had heard one of the released serfs ask a question, so it caught him a bit off guard.

"I don't care about the Sere, My Lord," the serf replied. "But it's the Scourge that has burned our homes and taken our children. Do they go free?"

"I doubt we'll be able to specifically target them," Roger said, after a moment. "But they'll be out of a job."

"Which means they'll go back to being bandits," Pedi said. "So be it. The Shin are better bandits than the Scourge any day."

"Not exactly something that I'd aspire to," Roger sighed. "But if that's what floats your boat."

"Your Light!" the sole Shin guard called. "There's a message from the north tower. A group has been spotted on the edge of the Fire Lands!"

"How large?" Pedi asked. She moved to the bastion's parapet and craned her neck, trying to get a glimpse beyond the northern defenses of the town.

"I don't know," the guard replied. "The message was simply 'a group.' " He pointed to the northern bastion, where a red flag with a complex design had been raised.

"Time to switch positions, people," Roger said. He turned and headed for the ladder. "I don't like this timing."

"Shit." Roger dialed back the magnification on his helmet. "Unless I'm much mistaken, that's a Scourge raiding party. How the hell did they get around our backside that way?"

"We knew that the Scourge had found a way through the Fire Lands," Pedi told him almost absently, straining her own eyes as she stared out over the wall. "We should have remembered that. I should have remembered, since it was how I came to be in their hands before the Lemmar captured me. But all of their captives were hooded on the way through the lava fields, so I was unable to tell Father where their route lies." She snorted bitterly. "It would seem they have chosen to use it again."

"Roger, we're... way outnumbered." Despreaux put in. She'd been doing her own count, and she didn't like her total. "We've got about fifteen guards in the town, and there are over a hundred Krath."

"It's not good," Pedi agreed. "But it's not quite as bad as it seems, either. Many of the clan leaders brought their families, and many of them are trained as I am. And we have the walls. I will go organize them, get them up here. Can you send a message to Nopet Nujam?"

"I can," Roger said. "But it's an hour's ride from there. Even if they sent the Vashin now, they'd be here too late. Get your battle-ladies. I'm going to find my armor."

"What are you going to do, Roger?" Despreaux asked nervously.

"Try to politely dissuade them," the prince replied.

"Sor Teb, as I live and breathe."

"Good afternoon, Prince Roger Ramius MacClintock," the head of the Scourge replied, walking up until he was within arm's length.

The Scourge raiding party had stopped and deployed just out of dart range from the walls. There were perhaps a hundred and fifty of them—a mixture of Krath and Shadem raiders. They were lightly armed and armored, but given what they were up against, that probably wouldn't matter.

Except for Roger.

The prince had donned his battle armor and packed along a heavy bead cannon. They hadn't gotten much in the way of ammunition from the spaceport yet, because they'd used most of their carriage for the explosives required to demolish the mountain. But they'd gotten a few rounds for the bead cannons, and his magazine was loaded first with shot rounds, then with solid. If he opened fire, he was going to cover the field in bits and pieces of Krath and Shadem.

"Well, if you know who I am, you ought to know that I don't bluff or negotiate very well," Roger told Teb calmly, and felt a trickle of amusement as the Scourge commander stiffened ever so slightly. Obviously, the Mardukan had hoped that the shock of knowing he'd been identified would throw Roger at least a little off stride.

"You're here on a fool's errand, Sor Teb," the prince continued. "The Sere have been stopped butt cold, and our reinforcements will be here in no time at all. Your army's trapped between our walls and a rising river, and it's surrendering en masse. Any captives you take will be returned, or you won't get your field army back. And if you don't turn around right now, as part of the negotiations we'll add your head to our demands."

"Very brave, Your Highness," the Scourge said with a grunting laugh. "But there are three things you're unaware of. First, given the situation that you and your people created in Kirsti, my head isn't worth spit in the Fire, anyway. Second, we're not here to take captives; we're here to kill everyone we can and loot the town to the ground, then return to the Shadem. I'm not going back to the Krath."

"Well, in that case my last point is that if you don't turn around, I'm going to turn you into paste," Roger said, hefting the bead gun. "I can kill at least half of you before you can make it to the walls. And then I can track down the rest and tear your arms out of their sockets. Oh, and you can't count—that was only two points.

"But I can, Your Highness." The Krath brought his hand around. "My third point is that I have a surprise for you."

Roger had never actually seen an example of the device in the Scourge commander's left true-hand—not in the flesh, as it were. But he recognized it instantly. It was no larger than an old, prespace flashlight, and the principal upon which it worked was almost as ancient as its appearance. Very few things could actually penetrate ChromSten armor, but there were ways around that. Essentially, Sor Teb's "surprise" was a last-ditch, contact-range weapon specifically designed to knock out battle armor or lightly armored combat vehicles. Known as a "one-shot," it consisted of a superconductor capacitor, a powerful miniaturized tractor beam, and a hundred-gram charge of plasticized cataclysmite in a ChromSten-lined channel.

If a one-shot could be brought into physical contact with its target and activated, the capacitor-powered tractor locked it there like an immovable limpet. Then the cataclysmite was driven at high speed down the weapon's hollow shaft in a wad with the consistency of modeling clay. When it hit the armor's outer surface, it spread over it, then detonated. The contact explosion couldn't blow a hole through the ChromSten... but it could transmit a shock wave through it, and the inner surface of the armor wasn't made of ChromSten. It was made of plasteel, far tougher and stronger than any prespace alloy, but far less damage resistant than ChromSten. It supported the ChromSten matrix, on one side, and the host of biofeedback monitors and servo activators which lined every square millimeter of the armor's insides, on the other. And the detonation of that much cataclysmite was perfectly adequate to blow a "scab" of plasteel no more than a centimeter or so across off the armor's innerbacking.

With more than sufficient power to blast the scab right through whoever was wearing the armor it came from.

It was, in many ways, a suicide weapon. The maximum range at which the tractor could be activated with any chance of a successful lock-on was no more than five or six meters, and the odds against a successful attack rose sharply as the range rose. That meant that just getting it close enough to hurt someone in powered armor was problematical, but there were more than enough other drawbacks to it.

The one-shot's grip was specifically designed to contain the late cataclysmite's explosion, but it often failed. And even if it didn't, if the tractor failed to lock tightly to the target, back blast from the face of the target's armor would normally kill any unarmored human in the vicinity. Not to mention the fact that when the tractor lock completely failed, the one-shot became an old-fashioned chemical-fueled rocket with all the thrust it would ever need to blast right through a human body, or at least rip off the odd hand or arm. But when it worked, it let someone without armor take out an armored opponent.

Sor Teb had proven how fast he was in Kirsti. Whether or not he was actually faster than Roger was no doubt an interesting point, but not really relevant at the moment. He had the advantage of surprise, and unlike him, Roger was trying to do two things at once. He'd already begun to raise the bead cannon when he recognized the one-shot, and his own weapon's movement distracted him ever so slightly as the Mardukan brought the one-shot flashing towards him. Even if it hadn't, the physics were against him.