I wonder what she thinks about us?
Us? Is this a relationship?
Man, this is the weirdest pre-mission pep talk I’ve ever given myself. Time to get the game-face on.
Harry mentally shook himself, and then rehearsed all the steps needed to close the distance to the gatehouse and clear it. He was checking off the list for the umpteenth time when the crack of rifle fire seized his attention.
“Volo’s getting started,” Stella whispered.
“No need to whisper,” Harry said in a more normal tone of voice. “No one is going to hear us over the sound of that.”
“That” was an impressive fusillade. Harry knew Volo’s group didn’t have many firearms, so the J’Stull security company was as heavily armed as Harry had feared. There was a brief whooshing sound and Harry grinned. The kid was doing all right. Harry had shown the Sarmatchani how to make black powder bottle rockets and Volo was using several of the things to create even more noise and confusion. The J’Stull would be surprised since they’d never encountered their like before.
“What’s going on?” Stella asked.
“Volo’s doing his job,” Harry answered. “Don’t worry. It all sounds good, so far.”
The rockets were simple noisemakers, but their mere presence increased the pressure on the commander to do something. At least, that was the plan. A loud horn was sounding from the bridge now and the gunfire from the road sounded like only a few rifles remained, using slow fire. Good. Volo had probably pulled part of his force a short distance back so the front line could simply turn and run under the cover of the first group’s fire. Rodriguez had done a good job training the kid.
The horns sounded again, and this time Harry could hear harsh yells, unmistakably the sounds of leaders marshaling their men in the dark, getting ready to chase the irritating Sarmatchani.
A few more rifles cracked, and there was a brief silence. Harry could actually make out some of the shouted commands.
“Close up! Close up!”
“Let’s get those shit-eaters!”
Then the Sarmatchani’s deeper, booming fire picked up again, just enough to goad the J’Stull into accelerating their pursuit, trying to close the distance to these savages that dared to attack them on the J’Stull’s own ground. Harry could make out the jingle of equipment as small units trotted past on the road to his side. The rifle fire sounded further away and still he sat, waiting.
After his Casio showed the ten-minute mark, he tapped Stella on the arm.
“All right, brothers,” he said, standing, “let’s go bag a bridge.”
* * *
The good news was that the J’Stull left behind were neither especially numerous nor skilled. Harry’s group had approached quietly and fallen upon them with the fury known only by those who’ve killed with cold steel. Harry led the assault, padding down the track toward the yellow glow of the guardhouse windows. The external guard had been standing at the edge of the area cleared of the tall grass, twenty meters from the adobe building. Unfortunately for the sentry, he was looking back at the building he was supposed to guard. At the last second, he jerked his head up, perhaps finally hearing the tread of the assault group or the sound of their passage through the dense foliage.
He was the first to die, dropped with a single round. Harry used the follow up shots from his M-14 to hollow out the cluster of organized defenders rushing out of the building, while the howling Sarmatchani swarmed, spears forward. The six J’Stull survivors had the presence of mind to return fire but the nomads screaming out of the darkness made for poor targets. Only one tribesman died and three more, including one runner, were seriously injured. In moments, all twelve defenders were cut down and Harry quickly organized the bloody aftermath. He ignored the bodies of the enemy, but adrenaline-fueled rage tingled in every extremity as he contemplated the death of men who had been his teammates. Instead of yielding to his anger, he organized the remaining Sarmatchani who were gaping at the electric light, rudimentary radio, and the firearms laying there, just for the taking.
Harry led them and the surviving runner topside before he and the diggers scrambled down the steep bridge abutment, seeking the first upright pier. It loomed in the darkness, cool to the touch. The pier was rectangular in cross section and a meter thick. Harry quickly organized two of the Sarmatchani to dig on the uphill side while he, the last clansman, and Stella searched for the next pier. Ears ringing, Harry could barely hear the sound of his spade biting the dirt, but his battle adrenaline fueled his efforts. For once his anger served a good purpose. As soon as the hole was knee-deep, he turned to order the last Sarmatchani to dispatch the runner while he and Stella finished digging.
Before he could get the words out, fresh gunfire shook the narrow canyon.
“The fuck is that?” Harry yelled at no one in particular.
He exchanged a shocked look with the man he’d been about to address. All three fought their way back up the steep abutment, swearing at the loose, treacherous footing. Above their heads, more fire was being exchanged, and Harry readied his weapon to the sound of screaming.
The Sarmatchani cleared ground level first, just ahead of Harry panting in second place. A heavy caliber bullet tore through the man’s head, painting Harry with a hot spray of blood. Ahead of the fresh corpse lay the cooling bodies of the other diggers. Harry dove to one side, rifle up, searching for targets.
There were plenty. Fully another half-dozen J’Stull soldiers were in view, spanning the clearing which faced the end of the bridge. They were still firing into the guardhouse where Harry’d left the survivors of his first attack. There was no return fire. Harry rolled sideways and down, seeking the concealment of the tall grass at the lip of the canyon. Leopard crawling along, he heard a couple rounds rip through the grass waving over his head in response to his passage. He needed to move even faster, so he rose to get a look and bounded forward, using the age-old mantra of the combat infantryman.
I’m up, he sees me, I’m down.
Just in time, because about half the J’Stull fired at his momentarily visible shape. Harry moved a few meters laterally, and then popped up to return the favor, hitting one J’Stull high on the shoulder and spinning him down to the grass. Harry looked for Stella, but she wasn’t visible. He’d last seen her on the final climb up the slope. Had she assaulted forward without him? He peeked but didn’t see her body.
Where is she?
He fingered his only fragmentation grenade, brought all the way from Earth. Between his superior rate of fire, and the little olive drab sphere, he had a chance. First, he needed the enemy to bunch up. He’d have to make sure he didn’t hi—
“Skyman!” an unfamiliar male voice cried out. “Skyman, I know you are there!”
Harry jerked so hard he popped his neck.
“Skyman! I have your woman!”
What the hell? Are you fucking kidding me?
Harry moved very slowly to the edge of the guardhouse. The view stopped his heart. A very tall man, as tall and as broad as Yannis and a J’Stull officer by the richness of his uniform, stood just outside the circle of yellow light cast by the surviving electric lights in the guardhouse. He was clearly daring anyone to chance a shot. He could afford to because he had a firm grip on Stella’s bloody right arm. Harry quickly scanned around, spotting two hidden guards who’d stayed further back in the grass, but the bulk of the enemy were arranged around their commander. They must have attacked across the bridge and chased some of the Sarmatchani back into the brush before turning around to spot the dig team.
Harry’s anger bloomed anew. His woman, his team. His mission. He began to breathe deeply, fully, adding oxygen to the fire of his rage.
Harry looked back at Stella. She was bleeding heavily from her arm and shoulder and though her face was tilted forward, partially obscured by her hair, he could see blood there, too. Where had this asshole come from?
Harry’s stomach fell when he realized there must be two guardhouses. He’d missed the
second one from a distance, and by the time they were close enough, the light had already begun to fail. This force would’ve been a couple hundred yards away, across the causeway. It had taken them this long to decide to move over, likely because they hadn’t been able to raise friendly forces on Harry’s side.
“Skyman! I know who you are! I know about your plan to shame the J’Stull, to attack the property of Kulsis, rightful overlords of R’Bak. Surrender, and I’ll spare this bitch.”
This guy was way too well informed. Harry and his anger wanted time, more time, ask me for anything but time, but this fucker was going to shoot Stella. Harry desperately flogged his brain for any combination of tactics and weapons that could turn this around. He might be able to drop the commander, but it wasn’t a sure thing, since he was shooting over open sights at night at a moving target. But then Stella would die at the hands of the others. If he used the grenade, he’d probably frag himself. It would kill Stella, for certain.
Dying wouldn’t be so bad, his anger whispered.
“Let her go, and you can have your bridge!” Harry yelled from behind the adobe wall, staying deep in the shadows. He saw gun muzzles snap in his direction and then weave, looking for a definite target. He mastered his rage one more time. “I’ll leave this place.”
“You’d give me what I already have?” the officer said, sneering. “How generous. Perhaps your woman can convince you.”
With that, he dug a finger into the wound on Stella’s arm, and she screamed, high and breathless, hanging from her captor’s iron grip.
“No!”
Harry didn’t even think, he stood and drew a perfect bead on the man’s face. Before he let this bastard hurt her again, he’d drop the man, consequences be damned. He began slowly pacing forward, heel-and-toe, carefully maintaining a sight picture. The front sight was razor sharp, his target a bit blurry and the night-blanketed grasslands behind were just a dark blur.
“Let her go or die, asshole.”
“Careful, hero,” the J’Stull soldier said, giving his limp captive a shake.
Harry stopped a few paces away. He could see Stella better now. She raised one hand to sweep her hair aside, revealing her unexpectedly composed features and as he watched, her eyes slitted as she evaluated their predicament.
Harry checked the position of the two snipers, but one was missing. While he watched, the second was yanked sideways, snagged by an invisible, irresistible force whisking him out of sight and deeper into the grass. A dull thud and grunt punctuated movement.
“Sir, sir! Behind us!” cried one of the J’Stull.
“Call them off or she dies!” the officer yelled, shaking Stella like a terrier shakes a rat.
Harry could see the source of the motion now. Hulking blue-black forms were ghosting forward, staying outside the circle of illumination. Harry lowered his rifle to the ground, slowly, slowly, and kneeled. His rage howled, but Harry shoved it down, down deep, and reached for their only chance.
“Harry, no!” Stella cried.
“Baby, just be quiet and relax,” Harry said, his voice low and urgent.
The J’Stull officer was clearly puzzled, looking left and right for his missing men, but he kept the gloating smile on his face as he surveyed his kneeling enemy.
“Fool. Your life is mine n—”
And the first batang bounded into the clearing, smashing into the nearest soldier. It hooted like a base trumpet as it knocked him down, and then grabbed his arm and neck as the soldier thrashed, trying to escape. The burly animal straightened its arms, like a washer woman spreading laundry on a line, and detached the man’s limb before discarding his victim on the ground.
Hoots and whistles came from every side as dozens of the creatures, including a particularly huge specimen, shuffled quickly into view. Shots rang out and some batangs screamed, sounding like steam whistles. Harry lay flat, arms at his side, watching as the officer released Stella and raised his own weapon. Another hairy form plowed into him, driving the man into the grass as Stella slumped motionless to the ground. The officer disappeared from view. Then his head bounced back into the clearing.
In moments, no men were left standing, and the clearing was full of grunting, hooting, and agitated batangs, slapping the ground. A few would dash up to a warm corpse and strike it before dashing away again. The largest batang, a huge monster that towered nearly three meters tall, shuffled forward, snuffling from its nasal slits.
Harry held very still as the batang drew within touching distance. It stamped the ground, and snorted. The rest of the troupe grew quiet. Harry remembered Volo’s words, and kept his eyes down, staring at the horny, spiked digits that tipped forearms many times thicker than his own legs. A procession of animals moved past, seemingly endless but in reality only taking a minute or two. Slowly, almost ponderously, the largest batang moved off. After another moment, Harry turned his head to see the tall animal shuffle-walk onto the bridge and disappear into the darkness, going about the important business of migrating, and leaving human business to the humans.
Around him lay bodies and parts of bodies, but heedless of the gore he scrambled over to Stella, who was curled into a tight fetal ball. As he approached, she looked up and then lurched to her knees to embrace him.
From out of the darkness, a final hooting call echoed across the canyon.
* * *
“Are you sure you’re supposed to be standing?” Harry asked, carefully holding his arm around Stella without actually resting his full weight on her. This was the first that he’d seen Stella up since she got shot. “Rosha seemed quite specific you were to rest. Most of what comes next is just waiting, anyway.”
“It isn’t every day of my life that I get to see, what did you call it, a shuttle, land next to my camp,” Stella retorted, reaching up and tugging his arm more fully onto her shoulders. “The bones have knit and the holes from the bullets are closed. I can even move the arm as long as I’m careful.”
“That arm is staying in the sling,” Harry insisted.
A double crack sounded across the sky, causing two rabbit-sized creatures with long legs and tails to take flight, their membranous wings pumping furiously.
“Ah, Ha-Ree, your friends come now, yes?” Yannis said, ambling over and scratching the hairy stomach peeking from behind his vest. “Soon we attack the J’Stull city?”
“Yeah, that’s them, honored Yannis,” Harry replied, looking upwards for the tell-tale contrail. Once the bridge had been blown, Harry had uploaded the sitrep on the next satellite pass, and Volo had received it even before they’d met at the rendezvous. Overhead imagery had confirmed that two full spans had failed on the ancient, inexplicable structure, trapping the J’Stull convoy. “Soon you’ll meet my comrades and we will take the war to Chorat, and then across the face of R’Bak, itself. But first, we will have to take the vehicles we have stranded on this side of the bridge.”
“They cannot run! Their fate is sealed!”
“Yes, but they can still shoot.” Harry smiled. “However, when the sun sets and they cannot see…”
Stella slipped free her arm around Harry’s waist, a motion detected by Yannis.
The chief concealed a smile behind a cough, and clapped Harry on the shoulder, though much more gently than he’d ever done before. “We will have a tremendous victory feast tomorrow, Ha-Ree!” Yannis exulted. “We will drink to the death of all J’Stull and their works! Your friends will attend! And then we shall seize the war wagons together!”
None of it was a suggestion. Harry winced internally, wondering how he was going to introduce the mixed bag of rugged individualists from old Earth to this nomadic chieftain. Then again, he’d like to see Major Murphy deal with it. It wasn’t his problem, anymore.
And that’s worth a smile.
“How did you know about the batangs, Ha-Ree?” she asked, reclaiming Harry’s attention.
“I didn’t.” He glanced at Yannis just as the older man hid a crafty smile, looking away. �
�But I’m pretty sure your father did. Probably why he was so confident. How the heck did he—?”
“It was Rosha who summoned them and marked Father as an alpha. But I was not asking how you knew the batang were paralleling us; clearly, you did not. I mean, how did you know how to react when they appeared? Batang are particularly dangerous when they are traveling with young. Yet you knew to neither flee nor fight. How?”
“Volo warned us early in our trip,” Harry replied. “He insisted that we remain calm and let the batangs pass. It worked the first time, so…”
“I could see that you were ready to loose your anger,” Stella said firmly. “I was angry you might sacrifice the quest just because that skrellig gave me a small hurt.”
“There she is!” whooped Rodriguez from atop one of the clan’s wagons. “Hell yeah, bring me that dust-off, boys! I got me a ride on the freedom bird!”
Harry looked, and high up in the brilliant blue sky, he saw the contrail left by the shuttle, describing arcs across the sky as it turned, bleeding off excess speed.
“I will never again trade your blood for anything,” Harry said, looking back at Stella. He watched her eyes widen fractionally. “No hurt to you is a small hurt, my love.”
“So, I’m your love now?” she answered, smiling broadly, even joyfully. “You will give me all of your anger? You will be my mate?”
Holy crap, she’s proposing to me!
Harry heard the crowd murmur, so he looked up again. The tiny cruciform shape of the dropship was barely distinguishable, drawing the long white line behind it as if by magic.
“Yes,” he said, still looking at the ship. He looked back down at his woman and slipped his arm from around her shoulders to face her fully and take both of her hands in his. “Yes. And you’ll be mine.”
He noted in passing he was trembling like a racehorse before the gate. Big bad Navy SEAL was as nervous as a virgin.
Damn. I’ve heard of getting the shakes during a drop, but this is ridiculous.
Murphy's Lawless: A Terran Republic Novel Page 20