by Paul Chafe
“Honored Mother! What are mazourk?”
“Tuskvor riders, our reserves. A czrav secret. We won’t use them unless we have to.”
Tuskvor riders? For a moment Ayla thought she’d misheard. If the czrav can tame tuskvor they’re more formidable than I imagined. She saw movement in one of the camera views, moved an icon and told V’rli, “Kr-Pathfinder’s group is in position on the bluff. No Tzaatz in sight.”
“Good, we may yet have time.” V’rli snarled into Ferlitz’s ears and he echoed her words, ordering Kr-Pathfinder to hold in place. They are using telepathy instead of vocom, untraceable and unjammable. It was not just the mazourk that made the czrav formidable opponents.
“More…more to the north…with flyers…” Ferlitz sounded feverish now, his reality entirely unconnected with the room his body happened to be in.
“Ferlitz, find me the leader.”
“The leader…” Ferlitz echoed his instructions weakly. For a long moment he was silent, then his entire body tensed and his voice strengthened. “It is a Black Priest!”
“A Black Priest—this is dangerous.”
“Yes…” His voice weakened again. “I cannot read him. I need the extract…”
“You must not. Not yet.”
Ferlitz-Telepath’s eyes flickered open. “Give it to me.” His snarl was imperious, commanding.
V’rli hesitated, then reached into a hidden niche in the back of the combat console, came away with a small vial of oily fluid. Ferlitz relaxed and she metered drops into his mouth. He licked his lips and was instantly in the trance again, deeper this time.
“He seeks a female…and the kz’zeerkti.”
V’rli snarled. “He will not find them.”
Cherenkova watched her displays, grainy with the thermal gain ramped all the way up. The now familiar shapes of rapsari moved in one of them, and she spun the display to map the camera’s field of view. “Honored Mother, enemy in the south valley. Looks like scout groups.”
“How close?”
How close? How do the czrav measure distance? “Almost to the ambush parties.”
V’rli lashed her tail. “South ambushes attack now. Northern ambushes, prepare to move south. Mazourk, stand by.” Ferlitz echoed her words, barely audible now, his body twitching. The sthondat drug was powerful, but it came with costs.
On her screen Cherenkova could see the ambushers screaming and leaping. They cut down the rapsari mounts first, then the Tzaatz riders. The czrav ambushers were incredibly fast, and as soon as they had struck they vanished again into the jungle. They did not escape unscathed however; not all the bodies they left in their wake belonged to their enemies. Deeper into the image something moved…
“More scout parties, covering the first. They know our first positions,” Cherenkova reported. V’rli circled her tail in acknowledgment, her attention focused on Ferlitz-Telepath.
“Fire…” He seemed delirious. “They are using fire…”
“Fire? Where?” V’rli demanded. Even as she did Cherenkova saw her screens flare bright as lasers torched the ground cover.
“South valley again.” Ayla kept her voice under control, for her own benefit, not V’rli’s. “The cover groups are starting them.”
“All teams to the river!”
“No! No, they’re watching the river.” Cherenkova blurted the words without thinking. V’rli looked up at her sharply.
“How do you know this?”
“They must be; it’s the logical tactic. They’re searching out the den. Their plan is to burn this side of the valley. They locate us with their search groups, then drive us out with fire. They expect we’ll flee to the river for safety from the fire, and that’s where we will be ambushed.”
V’rli looked at her for a long, long moment and Cherenkova did her best to keep her gaze level. Have I overstepped my position? Her last ground combat training had been in officer candidate school, and sketchy enough when she got it, just enough to give a naval officer a grounding in the concepts. I must be right.
“Yes…” Ferlitz-Telepath seemed completely delirious. “…the river…with net guns.”
V’rli leaned close to Ferlitz, her voice sharp in his ear. “All groups, that order is countermanded. Move to the base of the bluff, get on the rocks. Let the fire sweep past.” As Ferlitz relayed her words in his trance, her eyes met Ayla’s, understanding conveyed in a glance. Ayla had V’rli’s respect now, and her trust.
Now to prove worthy of it. Cherenkova kept scanning her screens. Something about the way the covering Tzaatz had withdrawn before the attack…Her cameras could see in darkness, but could they? She stabbed a finger into a control icon, twirled it to traverse the image and zoom. Yes… “The Tzaatz have spectrum goggles. The fire will blind them.”
V’rli looked up from Ferlitz. “That is important to know. We will attack in its wake. Keep me informed.”
“As long as I can, Honored Mother.” The flames were already licking high in the tinder-dry undergrowth, and even the huge, thick-barked spire trees were beginning to burn. It wouldn’t be long before Ayla started losing her sensors; already the heat was flaring the screens, blurring out the details she needed to keep track of the Tzaatz movement. And what if the Tzaatz are using the smoke and flame for cover themselves? They could infiltrate past the ambush parties and attack the den itself. Did they know where it was, or did they only know the general area? We’ll find out soon enough. She fumbled with the interface to damp the camera gain. Cryptic symbols floated in the air, and she stabbed them in sequence to make it happen. One of them worked and the displays cleared.
“They have gravcars…” Ferlitz seemed to be struggling, and V’rli put her hands beneath his head so he wouldn’t hit it on the hard stone floor.
Ayla switched her displays to the north valley. There were shapes there too, rapsari raiders carrying Tzaatz warriors, and the small, vicious harriers leashed in braces of four. Their plan was becoming clear now. Locate the czrav and drive them with fire to the waiting trap lines. Which implies they don’t know we have a hidey hole here. The den will be our last stand, but they might not find it. It was a comforting thought, and true enough beneath the lush jungle cover and at night. Come daybreak, though, the jungle would be burned off, and the den mouth would stand out like a sore thumb as the Tzaatz sifted through the ashes for the bodies of the dead. But where are the gravcars?
On her screen the small fires the Tzaatz lasers had started were growing fast. The jungle vegetation was tinderbox dry, and the resinous shoom trees burned like blowtorches, fast and hot enough to ignite bigger trees that might otherwise only smolder.
She became aware of the smell of smoke, only now drifting into the cavern. This is a real battle. There was death just outside her door, searching hungrily to come in. Of course she had known it was real, just as she knew that the maneuvering points of light in her plot tank had been real ships, when the cruiser Amalthea descended on W’kkai at the vanguard of the fleet. She had known there were real people aboard those other ships, real people who died horribly every time one of those lights went out, but somehow the reality never hit home until she smelled the burning when Amalthea got hit. She’d never forgotten the burning smell, and for an instant she was back on the cruiser’s bridge. Ayla had vented Amalthea’s atmosphere to space to save her, condemning forty of her crewmates to death in the same instant. Her attention drifted as a roaring filled her ears. Smoke was the smell of battle for all of history, smoke and blood and fear. I wonder how real it is to the masses on Earth who rely on us to keep them safe? The entire concept of war for most of the twenty billion Flatlanders was formed by thirty-second holocasts broadcast to their homes after dinner, smoke free.
“Status!” V’rli’s snarl brought her back to reality. A camera view went dark in the same instant and she switched the display to one still live. Movement caught her eye and she panned and zoomed an image. A swarm of harrier rapsari were moving up the rocky scree slope beneath the bluf
f, proving the ground for the armored Tzaatz warriors following them. “Enemy moving toward the den entrance.”
V’rli snarled. “We have a surprise for them. Sraff-Tracker, be aware, your moment is coming.”
“He…is ready…he sees them.” Ferlitz had trouble getting the words out. He was slipping deeper into his trance.
Ayla swiveled her cameras. She thought Sraff-Tracker should have been on the scree slope and directly in the path of the harriers, but nothing showed on her displays. Frantically she panned and zoomed all the cameras along the south cliff face, but nothing showed. “Honored Mother! I can’t find Sraff-Tracker.” If he’s out of position and those creatures get through…She didn’t want to think about that.
“Wait, he will show himself.” V’rli’s voice was calm.
With growing concern Cherenkova watched the enemy advance unobstructed, until they were on her last camera to the south. Another hundred meters and they’d discover the den mouth.
“Honored Mother…” Before she could finish there was a deep rumble that shook the cavern. For a split second she feared a cave-in, and the camera she had watching the Tzaatz went dark. She commanded its neighbor to cover as much of its field of view as it could. The screen was full of dust thick enough to obscure the light of the now furious forest fire. Not explosives. Then what? No time to find out. She needed to keep her point of view moving; she was the eyes of the whole defense. Still she couldn’t help watching the churning dust for a clue as to what had happened.
And then she saw it, as the dust dispersed in the wind kicked up by the fire. The entire scree slope was changed. Both Tzaatz and their rapsari were gone without a trace, and at least a hundred meters of jungle with them. Sraff-Tracker was above the bluff, not on the scree slope. They brought the whole cliff down! The czrav had kept their secrets for longer than humanity had known civilization. Now she was beginning to understand how.
On her screens another group mounted on rapsari raiders swept through the jungle behind the now raging fire. To the north the Tzaatz were setting up their stop lines, ambushes laid forward with a solid line of warriors farther back. A gravcar slid through one of the displays skimming over the canopy. There are the flyers. There would be spybots there too, though the smoke and flame would render their sensors much less useful. It was strange that the kzinti possessed such high technology but chose to fight each other with hand weapons. They do it to save their civilization from self-destruction. And really that was little different from the choices the UN had made for humanity before the kzinti first contact.
Another gravcar floated over. “V’rli, they have air reconnaissance.”
“Ignore it. Their sensors can’t get through the jungle canopy.”
And how is she so sure? But the czrav were no strangers to technology or its capabilities, though they chose to use it little, and they had their channels into the heart of the Patriarchy. No time to wonder. What else can the Tzaatz do with a gravcar? They could move units, and they could be weapons platforms. Troop movement would require somewhere to land; weapons platforms would be useless over the canopy. The gravcars could watch the river and little else, which was what they were doing. Why don’t they have assault vehicles? A combat carrier could dump boost and smash through the foliage like an incoming missile, something the lighter gravcars could do only at the risk of tearing off a polarizer and crashing. Their resources are limited. The Tzaatz have other problems to deal with. That was good news. A series of deep bellows echoed out of the night. She selected her central camera to check the situation with the reserves. The tuskvor were sensing the fire, and getting nervous. How did the mazourk control them, and just how good was that control? She could see they would need them to break the attack, and that moment was coming soon. They couldn’t afford to have the beasts panic and run before that.
“Ferlitz, tell all the groups, the Tzaatz are moving north behind the fire. Leap on them when they come through.”
The telepath echoed V’rli’s words, and as he did so Cherenkova imagined she heard them in her own head. Telepathic leakage. Can the Tzaatz hear his thoughts too?
“They obey…”
There was no time to worry about that. Cherenkova spun her cameras to keep the location plots updated. The Tzaatz were advancing behind the flame front, expecting to kill or capture anyone who came through the fire, but Ztrak Pride knew the ground, knew where to find the low spots the fire couldn’t reach. With fur scorched and blackened they held their positions and let the fire sweep over them to take the attackers from behind as they passed, and then vanish into the smoldering wilderness. There’s too much smoke and flame, too many hot spots for thermal vision to function well. Cherenkova allowed herself a grim smile of satisfaction. We have turned their weapon against them. She scanned her displays again, updated the position icons. The forest fire was raging now, beyond anyone’s control, rolling north between the river and the bluff like a predator consumed with the kill rage. Cherenkova imagined she could feel the heat coming from her screens, though the cool of the cavern was unchanged. She was in the safest place she could be for the fire, and she felt awe at the discipline of both the czrav and their enemies at choosing to continue the fight while it raged around and over them.
“The south has failed…they will come from the north now…” Ferlitz’s words were thick now. He was going deeper into the mind-trance.
Even as he said it Cherenkova saw the northern force begin to deploy. Another group edged forward over the scree slope toward Kr-Pathfinder’s position. “Honored Mother…”
Scream snarls from the front of the cavern sent adrenaline surging. Pouncer and T’suuz had leapt upon something that had made it to the den. Not all the Tzaatz had been killed in the avalanche.
“Watch Ferlitz!” V’rli tore off her decorative ear bands and leapt into the dark to join the battle.
“V’rli! V’rli!” Ayla called, but the kzinrette was gone. There is a time to ask and a time to act. She jumped over her console to kneel by Ferlitz-Telepath. “Kr-Pathfinder, take your group downslope. The Tzaatz are in front of you.” Will he relay my commands as well?
He did, though she couldn’t hear him do it because of the screams of rage and pain spilling from the front of the cavern. Unbidden, her mind’s eye called up the image of the vicious rapsar harrier. The Tzaatz had done exactly as she’d anticipated, used the smoke and flame to get past her cameras and get into the den mouth. And if you anticipated it, why didn’t you do something? No time for second guesses. Pouncer, T’suuz, and V’rli were all that stood between her and death in the dark, and she needed a weapon.
“No…” It was Ferlitz. “Your place is here…Command the battle…”
Cherenkova looked at him sharply. His head lolled back, eyes closed, and his breathing was shallow and rapid. He seemed to be struggling to stay conscious, even to stay alive. Watch him, V’rli had said, and he clearly needed help, but she didn’t know what to do.
“No…Command the battle…”
Was he in her mind too? She sat stunned for a second, and then movement in her displays grabbed her attention. Command the battle. The northern Tzaatz were advancing toward the wall of flame, and the czrav forces were committed in the south. The den mouth had been found. If the main force reached it…
She looked up, scanned the battle display. “Mazourk!” What are their capabilities? She had never seen a herd charge, but she could imagine it. “C’mell, the main Tzaatz force is moving south to the den mouth. Turn north and charge.”
Ferlitz’s voice had dropped below audibility, but the huge beasts in Ayla’s display turned ponderously and began to move north. Ayla switched cameras and waited, tensely. Would the beasts even broach the margin of the fire? They were big enough that even that fierce conflagration should cause little damage, if they were only exposed for the time it took to crash through it. And will they be enough to break the Tzaatz advance when they do?
At first the display showed only the lick of the fl
ames, with the Tzaatz force moving into position behind it, and then a shape loomed through the smoke, huge and dark, coming fast. Another appeared behind it, and a third, while the first resolved itself into a tuskvor herd-grandmother, sixty meters long and twenty tall, bellowing in fear and rage, tusks like sharpened battering rams swinging back in forth in search of a target for its fury. It couldn’t see between the smoke and the darkness, but its rider would have full-spectrum goggles. A fourth shape lumbered through the wall of fire, and Cherenkova could now see the mazourk on a platform on the lead tuskvor’s back, guiding it with what looked like a kite bar and harness. It had to be C’mell, though the thermal imagery wasn’t fine enough to reveal details of identity, and behind her were eight more of Ztrak Pride, armed with bows. Ahead of the charge the Tzaatz stood for long heartbeats as the tuskvor closed the distance to their first outposts. A fifth tuskvor emerged from the smoke, and then a sixth. Cherenkova held her breath, waited for the Tzaatz to break and run.
They didn’t. Incredibly, as the tuskvor reached the first line of blockers they leapt to attack instead, covered by a storm of crossbow bolts and trapnets from the reserves behind. Their heroism was wasted, and the herd charge stormed through their positions without slowing down, leaving broken bodies strewn in its wake. Crystal iron hunting arrows soared from the archers on the tuskvor’s platforms but bounced fruitlessly off Tzaatz mag armor. Undeterred, the czrav leapt from their mounts to attack, killing the few Tzaatz who’d survived with variable swords and leaving the bodies to the fire that rushed on behind them. Cherenkova stabbed a finger into her display to rotate and zoom. The first line had been skirmishers, lightly armed. The second line was heavier, with raider rapsari among the trees. As she watched the distance between the two forces closed and she held her breath in anticipation of the impact. And then the Tzaatz force wavered. A rapsar raider took a few steps backward, then turned to run. Other Tzaatz followed it, and then the line was broken and they were routed, fleeing into the jungle to save their lives.