by John Ringo
"Piket . . . achtung!" The men adjusted their halberds to stand straight against their bodies, then subtly rotated the pikeheads to face to the right. Each head was capped, blade and point, to prevent injuries. Their rights arms came across their chests to cross in front of their halberds' poles. Their own heads and eyes, likewise, turned right.
"Steht!" The men dropped their crossing arms and turned head and eyes to the front.
"Schultern . . . Gewehr!"
Nurse Duvall had found the Switzers, to a man, highly attractive. They were, one and all, well-muscled, extraordinarily fit, and—even if some of their faces could use with a trip to the plastic surgeon—very, very masculine.
It was their leader, though, to whom she was attracted. She didn't know if the attraction was mutual; she and von Altishofen had barely exchanged half a dozen words since the ship's company had gathered.
I'm not bad looking, I know, she thought. Plenty of the right equipment in the right places. Most men find me attractive. I wonder why von Altishofen is . . . no, not cold. Just distant.
Still, she'd noticed the Switzers' training schedule posted on the bulletin board and, not being terribly busy, had come to watch. As she watched von Altishofen put his men through their paces, she found her heart fluttering like a young girl's at a rock concert.
I'm being silly, she thought. And it's probably not mutual anyway.
Even so, she stayed to watch.
Frederico, walking from the galley by his father's side, heard the grunts of exertion and the clang of halberd on helmet and breastplate. He didn't know what the sound was, of course, nothing in his experience resembled it. But he was instantly fascinated.
"Dad, can we please go look?"
Guano, who had a much broader experience and did recognize the sound, in general, at least, was more than reluctant. Still, under his son's pleading gaze he relented. Together the Posleen walked to the assembly hall in the center of the ship.
After watching for a while, Guano observed, "Their technique is good, very good, for the kind of weapons they're using."
"Really, dad? How can you tell?"
"Well, son, for any two living beings facing each other, there are only nine possible lines of attack, of which one, the center, is so difficult—difficult because it's the easiest to guard—that one might as well say 'eight.' Most of the time, anyway, unless one can use those eight to uncover the center. They're covering all eight, trying competently to uncover the opposing center, and working in their own attacks. If those things they're using were somehow impervious to a monomolecular edge I wouldn't want to face them with just a boma blade."
As if to punctuate Guano's statement, Rossini's sheathed halberd came down in a slash on de Courten's right shoulder, knocking the boy to the deck. Frederico winced.
"And taking proper advantage of the peculiarities of their weapons, too," Guano added.
A whistle blew, causing all the Switzers to freeze in place. What looked to Guano to be the chief of the human soldiers walked over to the stricken man, de Courten.
"You all right, boy?" von Altishofen asked.
"Yes, Herr Wachtmeister," de Courten answered. He arose, rubbing one shoulder. "I think Leopoldo pulled his strike."
"Lucky for you he did, Hellebardier."
"Dad," Frederico asked, "during the war, why did the Posleen carry swords when they had so many more powerful weapons?"
Guano had noticed the boy's arms moving unconsciously in time with the drill. Not that he made the precise movements. Rather, those arms, the claws, and the shoulders twitched in unconscious mimicry.
And so I suspect that is my son's skill set. He is to be a fighter? But why can he not be a fighter for the Lord? Why must it be with arms?
Reluctantly, fairly certain of what was coming, in time, the father answered, "Four reasons, I think. At least four. Firstly, the swords were tools for gathering thresh, hence doubly useful. Secondly, unlike the more powerful weapons, the boma blades didn't damage the thresh, but left it at worst partially harvested. Then, too, boma blades never jam, nor run out of ammunition, nor decay in the worse climates."
Guano stopped speaking.
"That was only three, dad."
"I know. The last reason is hard for me to fathom now. But . . . the boma blades were, as much as anything, for honor. When someone challenges a kessentai with a blade, it is considered dishonorable not to meet them blade to blade, and most honorable to do so. It's almost a law. Maybe, even, it is a law.
"And, no, son, I don't know why that should be."
It was one of the things Frederico loved about his father; while he was certain, utterly certain, in his faith in the human God, about his own knowledge he was actually a fairly humble being. This had hit him months before, when he'd realized his father's nickname, "Guano," meant "shit."
"It was only the AS that insisted upon that 'Reverend Doctor' nonsense, Son." So his father had said. "For my part, it teaches me humility to have the nickname that I do. Indeed, I prefer it to what the full name means in High Posleen: 'Spirit of Vindictive Bloodlust.'"
Hard not to love an old man like that, even if he wasn't a man and even if he could be an awful hard ass at times.
Frederico spotted Sally, the woman, watching the Switzers at their drill from another entrance into the assembly haul. Without asking permission, he bounded over, swerving only to stay away from the Guardsmen's swinging polearms.
"Hi, Sally," the boy said as he wrapped his clawed arms around her waist and buried his scaly, brown and yellow face, sideways, against her midsection. He wriggled like a boxer dog, perhaps the only canine that shows with its entire body that it's happy to see you. She, for her part, put her hands down and scrunched both of his ears. The entire time, though, she kept her blue eyes on the boy's sire even as the sire watched her intently.
"Dan," Sally said, a few days later, over dinner, "you know I like the little Posleen, and even like his mother. But the big one, Guanamarioch, just creeps me out."
"Why? What's he done?"
"He hasn't done anything. But he's studying me, I mean both me me and the diagrams of the ship part of me, and has been doing the latter since yesterday."
"So? Maybe he just wants to learn his way around. Maybe he's bored."
"Then why study me as if I'm a carcass to butcher?"
Dwyer shook his head. "Can't say, but I don't think he means you any harm."
"Prove it."
"Well . . . his wife and son are aboard you. Anything bad happens to you, the same happens to them?"
"In the war Posleen sacrificed sons and cosslain all the time."
"Yes, but Guano's not a warrior anymore. Just relax, would you?"
"No. Instead, I'm going to go make some better halberds for the Switzers. I wanted to do that anyway. And some better armor, too."
Chapter Seventeen
Seven times seven times did the maddened horde
Swirl over the rampart, their fangs dripping yellow.
And seven times seven times did our lord drive them back.
—The Tuloriad, Na'agastenalooren
Anno Domini 2010
Hemaleen Five
Tulo watched impassively as one of his newly recruited kessentai, apparently out of ammunition and reaching for his boma blade, was dragged down and dismembered on the rampart by nearly a dozen of the scrawny locals. When the rail gun had clicked empty, the God-king's first reaction had been to throw it, muzzle first, right through the face of the nearest subnormal.
Note to self, Tulo'stenaloor thought, get Goloswin to figure out some way to add those human things, bayonets, to the rail guns.
The thrown rail gun hit the target just under its left eye, punching through scaly skin, meat, and bone. The pressure of displaced flesh and bone forced the eye out of its socket, causing the normal to shriek and claw at its face, before falling to its knees. Its cousins, unfazed, leapt over the stricken one, warbling gleefully and with little knives held high.
; The kessentai's claws had not reached the hilt of the boma blade before one of the enemy managed to thrust its knife into its chest and drag it down half a foot. There the thing lodged in bone. The kessentai clutched at the knife as it raised its muzzle and howled with the pain. Those howls were cut short as still more of the locals swarmed over the God-king, striking or slashing with their knives as the mood and opportunity took them. The victim shrank, both morally as its wounds took hold and physically as the normals hacked off chunks of flesh and gobbled them down.
Tsk, Tulo thought as he leveled his own heavy duty rail gun and let fly a burst of several score projectiles. The normals feasting on the fallen God-kill began to shred and, in some cases, explode as the projectiles dumped their massive energy into the bodies.
"Goloswin?" Tulo asked via his AS. "How's that redoubt coming?"
Goloswin physically pushed a friendly normal into the position he wanted the beast, then made shoveling motions with his claws to show what he wanted done. From his high point near the C-Dec, he could see a few leakers coming in over the parapet he'd thinned out to build the redoubt. So far, they weren't lasting long.
"So far . . . give 'em time," the tinkerer muttered. "They're slow learners, apparently, but they will learn." Turning his attention back to the beings in his charge, he shouted, "Dig you brainless refuse from addled eggs! Dig you piles of demon shit. DIG FOR YOUR LIVES!"
He heard from his AS Tulo's preternaturally calm voice, "How's that redoubt coming?"
Despite the circumstances, Golo had to chuckle. That's why we follow you, Tulo. Or one reason anyway. You never lose your composure.
"Two thousand beats, Tulo. Not a beat less."
"And the moving of the anti-matter drive back into the hull?"
"About four thousand, or maybe five if I lose any of my skilled cosslain."
"Right. Mustn't let that happen."
"No, Tulo. We mustn't. But as to what we can do about it . . ."
Goloswin's yellow eyes turned to the expedition's few tenar, moving in formation past the encampment's walls and over the horde.
Well, there's a few thousand less of them, Brasingala thought, as he and his tenar made a sweeping pass in formation, all weapons blazing, over the mass of locals more of less in the center. The weapons were under AS guidance, even though the order to fire and to distribute fire came from the kessentai.
The fire had lanced down, sweeping left to right from each tenar and strewing the field with torn, broken, bleeding, burnt, and—often enough—exploded, bodies.
I'd have felt a lot better about that if those bodies were not just lying on top of more bodies. There are too many. We're so fucked. And I am going to fail my lord. Damn it.
"There is enough ammunition for one more good pass, Lord," Brasingala's AS said. "After that, we'll have to return and rearm."
Brasingala said nothing to the AS, but only nodded to show that he understood.
He heard from the AS his leader's words, "Brasingala? Tulo. You've got to be running low on ammunition. Cease fire now. Half of you go and rearm. The other half are my personal reserve. Form them on me."
And that, too, Lord, makes you peerless, thought the bodyguard. Few of the People would even think about ammunition status. You anticipate problems even before you're informed.
"Tulo, you've got a problem." That was Binastarion's voice, from far overhead in space.
"What's that?"
"The feeding frenzy's over. Those herds Brasingala shot up are moving again."
"All of them?"
"Well . . . if you consider that the ones who can't move on their own are being carried in the digestive tracts of the rest, then, yes, you could say, 'All of them.'"
"Humor's good," Tulo answered. "Humor is great. But I'm not in the mood right now, so let's keep it simple, shall we?"
"Sorry, Tulo."
"Never mind. What's their estimated time of arrival?"
"I'm downloading them to your AS now," Binastarion answered.
"Goloswin; Tulo."
"Yes, Tulo?"
"I'm afraid that your schedule—two thousand beats and four thousand beats—is going to have to be modified."
Golo could just see the look on Tulo's face. There was a single word for it in High Posleen—"tengrava'al"—which translated into human speech approximately as "contemptuous and laughing indifference to the prospect of painful dismemberment." In Low Posleen the word had one fewer syllables and translated more simply as, "We're so fucked."
Goloswin used the shorter version. After all, there wasn't time to waste on the longer.
"Faster you misbegottenadledbraindeadrefugeesfromtherecycling bins," he shouted aloud. In Posleen, this, too, was a single word. "Faster you foul-breathed, dickless perversions in the form of People. Put some spring into it you traders-of-dick-rubs-for-better-cuts-of-thresh." (Another Low Posleen word, that.) "MOVE!"
A steady stream of cosslain carried the parts of the anti-matter engine into the C-Dec. They were moving about as fast as they thought they could. Under Goloswin's tongue lashing they managed to move a little faster still, even as the rest, digging the fallback position, dug just a tad more frantically.
Brasingala was frantic. No amount of hustle on the part of the ground crews re-arming his, and about half of his followers', tenar could possibly have been sufficient, not when his lord was likely fighting for his life. Impatiently, the kessentai pushed aside a cosslain who was in the process of pouring flechettes for the rail gun into the ammunition bin. The cosslain was being more careful than the system required, since it oriented the projectiles before feeding them.
"Go get more," Brasingala ordered as he finished the pour. "And don't dawdle or we'll have you for the post-battle feast."
If they didn't usually stop to choke down the thresh, Tulo thought, they'd have overrun us by now.
It was true enough. While some leakers through the perimeter did press on—probably an instinctive desire to get the best food first—for the most part the local normals stopped to feed whenever one of them managed to plant a clawhold on the surrounding berm and down one of the defenders.
For the first time since meeting the humans, I wish that my people cooked our food, too. That would give us a lot more time.
"Not a lot more time, Golo," Tulo'stenaloor announced via his AS. "I hope you're nearly there."
"'Nearly' is such a loaded word, Tulo," the tinkerer's voice answered.
"I assume that means no, not yet."
"See?" said Golo. "I knew there was a reason we follow you—no, not there, you stupid bastard! Over there!—you're just so bloody insightful."
"Stupid bastard?" Tulo asked.
"One of the cosslain, not you, Tulo."
"Going to be bloody, most likely," Tulo answered, imagining the three delayed hordes and their eventual arrival.
As Brasingala took off again, followed by five more tenar, he saw his chief, Tulo'stenaloor, calmly scything down a largish group of leakers with a rail gun.
That's not his job. And it's a measure of my failings that he's had to take it on. If only—
The bodyguard noticed that the group Tulo had just done for had been the only ones still standing on the defensive rampart or inside of it. That seemed odd enough that he raised his tenar higher and higher until he could see over the berm.
"Unholy piles of grat-infested shit," he muttered. Indeed the locals had ceased their attack for the nonce. This might have been because from three other directions poured endless masses of chittering, clawed, knife-wielding normals.
"Lord . . . Lord . . . there are too many. Let me come down and pick up at least you and the tinkerer to save."
"Nonsense, puppy," Tulo answered. "But I want you to hold your fire for a moment . . . break, break . . . Goloswin, how's it coming?"
"The anti-matter engine will be fully loaded—not operational, but fully loaded aboard and able to be assembled—in a few hundred beats, Tulo. The inner rampart is . . . about as good as it's goi
ng to get."
"That's fine," Tulo said. "I want you to get every cosslain and kessentai you have available on the inside, facing out . . . break, break . . . ALL kessentai, listen up. We can't hold the outer perimeter any longer. When I give the word I want three things to happen all at once. First, Brasingala: I want you to split up your tenar and sweep the outer perimeter, buying our people a little time to get into the inner one and get organized. Second: the landers on the perimeter; I want you to stay where you are and do the same. You'll be safe enough there; it would take the locals eons to cut through the metal of your skins with their knives. Lastly: every kessentai on the outer wall; again, on my command, I want you to race inward and form around the new inner wall. Reorganize your people, have the front ranks lay down, and then the rear ranks start firing like lunatics toward the outer wall as they swarm over. We'll evacuate into the ship from the rear, as our People empty their magazines."