Undaunted

27

The view ahead of the shuttle showed big clumps of brown grass being chewed on by widely scattered brown cows with absurdly long horns. The clumps of grass would be hard on the shuttle’s landing gear.

What the cows and their horns would do to a longboat and the people in it did not bear thinking about.

“There’s what looks like a dry riverbed,” the pilot said on net. “I’ll try to stretch our glide that far.”

It was a close-run thing.

Kris didn’t realize just how close it was until she dismounted and saw the copilot pulling prickly tumbleweed from one of the main landing gear.

Kris had other things to worry about.

“This is Sergeant Bruce, and we are at the hot spot. It is our LAC-2, and it’s much the worse for wear. I think he intentionally ran it into the side of the dry wash to try to hide it. No computer in sight. It’s dry and rocky ground. No obvious tracks. My techs are trying to find a heat trail or something. Wait one, please.”

It was a very long wait even if it did go less than a minute.

“Folks, we got a problem here,” Sergeant Bruce said as he came back on the line. “On the ground above the dry wash, it looks like someone ran a herd of cattle through here. Say a day ago from the dryness of the cow patties. The ground’s turned up, and we can’t spot an Iteeche footprint among all the cow prints.”

“So we do this the hard way,” Jack said. “Those of you still in the air, you got anything to add to this?”

“This is Private Zenger,” came in an amazingly chipper contralto. “I’ve got the cattle trail in sight. That fast-moving rig cut right through the hoof-marked area, and I can see it making tracks. Would you like to have me follow it and maybe catch up with it?”

“You do that, Cindy Lu,” Sergeant Bruce said.

“Let’s see how far I can stretch this glide,” she said, voice heavy with strain as she worked the shroud lines of her para-glider. “If I pull this off, I don’t expect to hear any more complaints about how small I am.”

“That’s a promise, Cindy,” came from an unidentified male voice on net.

Kris found herself pacing back and forth . . . considered its impact on Ron and her Marines . . . and kept pacing.

“I got a pretty good visual on the rig, Sergeant,” came in that pleasant contralto again. “Looks like there’s a guy driving an open four-wheel-buggy kind of thing, and there is definitely something big in his passenger side, filling the back and front. Can’t tell if it’s a package or something else.”

“Marines in the air, home on Zenger if you can,” Jack ordered.

“Can you reach it before it gets out of your glide range?” Kris asked.

“I don’t think so. That rig is really moving.”

“Do you think you could put a round in it?” Kris asked.

“Clarification, ma’am. Put a round in what? The driver, the thing in the passenger seat, or the rig?”

“Any chance you could put a shot through a tire?”

“Ma’am, I qualified sharpshooter, but that thing is moving fast, and I’m fighting the shrouds. It would be a crapshoot.”

“What about popping a sticky net on those folks?” Kris asked.

“I’m game, ma’am, but I’ll have to concentrate on my aim. I’ll pretty much land where I land.”

Jack turned to Kris. It would be her call. And she’d better make it fast. “Use the sticky grenades.”

“Loading my first one. Sighting in. Damn, I hit an updraft as I pulled the trigger. Now that don’t happen all that much at the range.”

“Can you try again?”

“Ma’am, I got two more grenades. One’s loaded. . . . Fired. . . . Landed just ahead of the rig.”

“Anybody know what tangle net does to a rig’s suspension?” When that got no answer, she reported, “Last round loaded.”

“Driver’s dodging right and left, but I’m getting lower. Less of an angle. Shot’s away. . . . It’s going to miss. No, he turned into it. Oh Lordy, what a mess.”

“What’s happening?” Kris demanded, envisioning the car going rear over front, or rolling over and over as a dust cloud engulfed it. Or worse, the whole thing blowing up in flame and smoke.

She looked toward the horizon; it stayed an eye-blinding blue.

“The driver is just letting his rig coast to a stop. The package in the passenger seat is doing a whole lot of moving, and I don’t think it’s happy. Not happy at all.”

A few minutes later, Private Zenger had an open mike up beside the rig, transmitting as one cowboy cussing a blue streak about minding his own business when that thing grabbed him, then getting tangled all up and damn near breaking his neck and a whole lot of other thoughts on life in general and whatever this thing was and why people were dropping out of the sky and disturbing his day.

Ron and his herald took off in that general direction at a clip Kris could not hope to manage. She considered asking for a ride, but, since one was not offered, she suspected it was not the kind of thing that Iteeche did.

That left her all dressed up, commanding an armed force sitting in the middle of a planet she didn’t have permission to invade, and hoping nobody happened along and noticed.

Correction, nobody else happened along and took an interest in what she was doing on their planet with two squads of Royal Wardhaven Marines.

From the noise made by the local they’d made the acquaintance of, strange armed forces were not at all welcome here.

Kris did have a tiny bit of luck. Chief Beni and his amazing Da Vinci managed to get her an unlisted number on the local net, as well as one for the Wasp. Now they could talk to each other when the ship wasn’t above the horizon.

That allowed Kris to have the next shuttle drop onto the dry riverbed with two gun trucks, minus the guns. With mobility, Kris arrived at the site of the tangled-up human and Iteeche about the same time Ron did.

“So,” Kris said, looking at the pair in the sticky net. “What do we do with them?”

“You can cut me loose,” the human demanded.

“You can slit my throat,” the Iteeche said with equal force.

“I hope you folks can keep the two of us straight,” the cowboy said. “I’m the one that likes my throat just the way God made it.”

“I think we can tell you two apart,” Jack said. “Our problem is that you’ve seen way too much.”

“You mean like an Iteeche roaming around with no brand. I got no problems with a maverick or two on the range.”

“After the talking-to you’ve given us, I don’t think there’s much of a chance that you’d kind of like forget you ever saw the Iteeche and us?” Jack asked.

“Forget I’ve seen three Iteeche and a whole posse of Marines that don’t belong here. Not bleeding likely.”

“I wish you hadn’t said that,” Kris said.

“What can you do about it?” the cowboy demanded.

Kris turned away from the cowboy to raise a questioning eye at Jack. “Looks like this is another planet we won’t be invited back to,” the Marine said, with a sigh.

“Still five hundred and ninety-five to go,” Kris said.

“More if we start on the Iteeche Empire,” he said with only a slight groan.

Kris turned back to the private citizen of Texarkana. “Sir, I’d like to invite you to an all-expenses-paid vacation enjoying the fine hospitality of my good ship, the Wasp.”

“And if I don’t take all that kindly to an offer from Princess Kristine of Wardhaven? I heard you were coming to these parts. Ain’t you supposed to tell those immigrant industrialists that they ought to just shut up and take things the way they are?”

“I heard that,” Kris said. “It came as a surprise to me.”

“I also heard tell that you were going to tell us to stuff the old ways where the sun don’t shine and let them have a vote, even-steven, one man, one ballot.”

“I also heard that,” Kris said. “It came as a surprise, too.”

“I didn’t think you Longknifes got surprised all that often.”

“Lot of people think that. None of them are Longknifes, I assure you.”

“So that’s the way it is, huh? What are my chances of dodging this bit of hospitality you’re offering?”

“Pretty much the same as you making a run for the horizon faster than my Marines can put a sleepy dart in your butt.”

The cowboy eyed the distant edge of the sky and shook his head as much as the tangle net allowed. “I got a date with my Suzie for Friday night. I hope you get your problem solved before she finds a better square dancer than me.”

“We will try,” Kris said, and ordered both the human and the Iteeche cuffed, then had the tangle net sprayed so that it hardened and broke into chunks.

“Why didn’t you let them kill me?” Philsos demanded of Ron.

“If it had been left to me, I’d give you the knife myself, but the humans think enough Iteeche blood is on their hands. You will live until we return to the Emperor. He will decide what you may do to restore honor to yourself and your family.”

Kris got her command, plus prisoners, loaded and headed back to the shuttles not a moment too soon. From that far horizon her prisoner had considered making a run for came the dust of a truck, maybe two.

Then a call came from the landers. They spotted dust from two rigs speeding toward them.

The drivers of Kris’s trucks put the hammer down, and the rigs bounced from one rock to the next clod of grass with painful speed. By the time Kris rolled up to the shuttles, only the noonday heat kept her from naming the make and model of the approaching trucks . . . or them reading the numbers on the landers.

Her trucks drove into one lander as the rest of them raced for the other, hefty Marines dragging recalcitrant prisoners. The shuttles were rolling even as the rear doors began to rise. Kris helped strap in the Iteeche, then checked the cowboy before taking her own seat.

The shuttle was accelerating even as her buckle clicked shut.

Kris jacked up the power on the nose camera and swung it around to get a good view of the approaching trucks. Someone stood in the lead truck’s passenger seat, leaning on the front screen and pointing a pair of binoculars at the climbing shuttles.

With any luck, Kris’s optics were more powerful than those. And got a more steady view. And the only pictures of the situation for anyone to examine in detail.

So much for the start of this mission. Still, there was an upside. They had all the Iteeche back under control.

No one had been killed.

And likely no one on Texarkana knew who these strange visitors were and why they had come.

At least until Kris released the guy she was holding.