“We got to go. Now, Sergeant.”
“My thoughts exactly. Okay, Marines, living forever is way overrated. Up and at ’em. Fire and move.”
As the sergeant stood, he just happened to kick Kris’s knee out from under her. She found herself falling flat.
“You come along later, Your Highness,” he said, and was gone, moving deliberately, firing single shots as he spotted something worth a round. On either side of him, eleven troopers moved in perfectly trained reflections of their sergeant.
Kris pulled herself back up, level with a hay bale. Ahead of her troopers someone tossed aside a gun. Still lying flat, though now faceup, he held his hands to the sky.
One of the Marines went down, blood glistening on the chest of her armor. In the orchard, what had looked to be a clump of dirt exploded in blood and brains.
With a suddenness that was a kick in the gut, this little corner of the battlefield fell silent. The Marines still advanced, studying the wreckage before them over their rifles’ sights, fingers tight on the triggers, but nothing moved.
Nothing so much as twitched.
Volunteers now ran ahead of the Marines, moving among the lumps on the ground, throwing bodies over on their backs. Finding here and there one that still had strength to raise its hands. Struggling to get “I surrender” out past parched lips.
One of the farmers went down from a shot to the leg, but it didn’t come from those in the orchard. No. Bullets were flying from the running battle line.
“Down, down, get down,” Kris shouted as she raced up to the battle-raped orchard. “Your targets are up the valley. You’ve got to stop them from getting into the hill.”
The Marines took to ground, in some cases rolling in front of them the dead armored bodies of the previous occupants of this bit of earth. Looking more than a bit dismayed, the farmers also took their places, prone behind what protection they could find. Quickly, the sound of deliberate rifle fire filled the air.
Five, six hundred meters up the valley, men in white smocks began to fall.
Above the mangled tree that now marked the observation post, two carts rolled down the hill in front of several armored and unarmored men. Kris took them under fire.
The range was long. With the afternoon, a breeze grew. It wafted up the valley in fits and bursts that made aimed fire far too inaccurate for Kris’s need of the moment. Still, she carefully aimed her shots and hit some, missed too many.
From the observation port, an armored head ducked out, saw this danger, and crawled forward. That Marine dropped one, then another, then a third of those huddling behind the carts, which rolled ever closer.
A grenade flew over one cart to drop onto the flat in front of the port. The Marine grabbed for it. The grenade blew as he touched it.
Kris had to stop the attack. She could only guess at what was in the carts . . . and all her guesses came up horrible. She aimed for the auto tires of the carts. She hit . . . they went flat . . . but now gravity was on the enemy’s side.
Tires flat or no, they kept on moving.
A Marine rolled from the observation post. On her back, she fired so fast it sounded like slow automatic.
Up the hill, troopers in white and armor went down, but an arm came up in one of the wagons, hurling a satchel.
For a moment it looked like the satchel would fly too far.
Then it hit the battered tree stump and bounced back.
The Marine made a grab for it.
The explosion was blinding. Kris felt the blood drain from her face, but she could not lie there holding her breath while she waited for the smoke and dirt to clear. There were still targets, some up the hill, where the carts were only half-shrouded by smoke, others downhill, where white coats, now screaming the charge, lurched toward the smoke.
Kris selected a target. Fired. Selected a new target. Fired. Beside her, Marines and volunteers did the same.
“I’m empty,” came in a voice Kris ignored. The second or third time, she knew a commander was called for, not the shooter she’d become.
She glanced around. Several Marines sourly glared at their silent M-6s.
Kris reached for the bandoleer she’d swung around her neck before they left the Wasp. She tossed it to the empty Marine closest to her. Kris hadn’t been doing a riflemen’s job as much as they had.
As Kris turned back to pick out another target, Marines tore into clips of killing darts, cartridges of propellant. In a moment, the fire from the bedraggled orchard again was hellish.
The smoke had cleared from the observation port. Now a huge hole gaped.
Three white coats stormed the mouth of the cave.
Only to be blown backward by shots from within.
Kris yelled. All around her at the mouth of the valley, there rose a yell.
And fire. Fire that made hell seem calm.
White coats fell in windrows within ten, twenty, thirty meters of that smoking gash in the earth. Still, let one get close to it, stand in the mouth of it, and a shot from inside drove him down.
Down and back and bleeding.
A Marine still lived, and that Marine defended that hole in the ground like the mouth of hell.
In the fields along the hills and valley, more white-coated men went to earth. Men dropped into the cut grass of the fields and looked for leadership. Brave men looked to the dead around them, ahead of them . . . and put their faces to the dirt.
The assault had stalled.
White-coated men put their rifles down in the dirt before them and fired no more.
The assault had failed.
Around Kris, rifles fell silent. Above Kris, Gunny’s voice could be heard calling, “Check fire. Check fire. Save it until we need it.”
The valley grew quiet. Over the ridge, rifle fire was still sporadic, but here, a bird could be heard calling.
Her rifle before her at the ready, Kris drew a breath. She’d lived. She was still alive.
And Cortez’s army had been stopped.
The battle wasn’t over. It could still be lost. But for now, Kris was alive, and Cortez was stopped.
42
Kris barely had time to catch her breath, celebrate that she could still draw one . . . when she spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. Glancing back, she watched as a Marine made her way forward at a crouch.
She had no weapon!
For a moment, anger flared. What was a Marine doing on this battlefield without her weapon?
It took Kris’s numb brain a moment to recognize the comm tech. Why was she out here?
Then Kris knew her brain was mush. There was only one reason for the comm tech to risk her neck out here. And it had nothing to do with the use of a rifle.
Indeed, maybe it was because she didn’t have a rifle that no one took a shot at her. For a very long moment, the comm tech was the only thing moving on the quiet, murdered field.
Then she slid down not too far from Kris, only slightly out of breath, and explained the grin on her face.
“Captain Drago sends his regards and respects and reports that Captain Thorpe and company have left orbit, running for all they are worth.”
If Kris hadn’t been hearing it from so reputable a source, she never would have believed it. Thorpe was running!
This was a tale she wanted to hear from Drago himself.
But that would have to wait.
Kris reached for the largest branch around and looked at it sourly. It was hit in several places and tended to bend in many of those; still, when she held it up high, it stood tall.
“Now all we need is something white. Anyone got a bedsheet?” No one did.
“Big bandage? Handkerchief? Anything white, please?” she finally said, as all her questions drew blank stares.
One of the Fronour girls said, “I’m wearing white panties.”
Kris doubted the mentioned unmentionables would be all that large, but they were white.
“I’ll take them, please.” Kris said.
The young woman reached around under the calf-length dress she wore and, in a moment, produced the offered garment.
“I been trying to get into your panties for months,” one of Red’s boys said. “All she does is ask, and you give them to her.”
“She said ‘please,’ ” the woman shot back, and tossed Kris the necessary white for her banner.
Sergeant O’Mally offered plastic-cuffs to fix the makeshift flag in place, and Kris got up on her knees.
Sergeant O’Mally only got as far as clearing his voice. But the comm tech already rested her hand on Kris’s flag.
“Ma’am, it’s my job to come up with protocols that allow dissimilar systems to communicate with each other.” She glanced around the battered and bleeding field. “This is my job.”
Kris wasn’t sure the battered staff would survive a tug-of-war.
Peter Tzu settled the matter. “I took this out of the dead hand of a man in my house,” he said, producing the bullhorn that the sergeant had used to blast his demand for their surrender. Peter handed it to the comm tech.
She took it, and the flag, as Kris released her hold on the staff. Kris would let this dangerous job of matching dissimilar systems fall to the woman who demanded it.
The sergeant smiled.
Kris found it hard to believe that, after this battle, a sergeant could smile contentedly over winning such a minor thing as a battle of wills with one princess.
Then, Kris didn’t have to report to Jack . . . too often.
Lying flat on her back, the comm tech waved the white flag several times. No one took a shot at her.
“So far, so good,” she whispered, and stood, still waving the flag with its tiny bit of white. Still, no shots.
She began the slow process of walking forward. Kris listened to the crunch of her footfalls and the calling of two birds. Maybe more. Still, no shots.
The comm tech stopped after covering about two hundred meters or a third of the way to where the white coats had gone to ground. Raising the bullhorn, she called. “My commander requests a parley with your commander on this field of valor.”
Nice words. Kris wondered at her choice. Valor seemed far too clean and neat for what lay around her.
A white coat came to his feet. “Maybe my commander will spare your commander the time for a few words if the subject is your surrender,” he called back.
“It is not for junior hirelings like you and me to bandy words when matters of import wait upon our masters’ bidding.”
Kris had to suppress a giggle. She knew those lines. What was the book? The media event had been a mere ghost, cut down to fit in two hours and robbed of so many of the book’s good parts.
SARACEN BLADE, Nelly supplied.
Right, that was the delightful fantasy. And romance. Kris had loved it. Up and down the line, the women Marines were grinning proudly. The guys were making as if to throw up.
What gave Kris pause was the kid from Jerusalem. He’d gotten his lines word for word right. Had that book sold there, too? Or had he played the straight man with no coaching?
Kris waited to see what the comeback would be, but an older man was standing now, dusting off his camouflaged armor and holstering his pistol.
He looked like the man Kris had watched before the attack began.
“As you were, Lieutenant,” the man said in a voice that needed no bullhorn to carry over the stilled valley.
And the white coat flinched and went to stand beside the speaker. That man took off his gun belt and said something to the younger. The man stood to attention, shouted, “Yes, sir,” and saluted. Then he ran off to find someone.
And the senior began walking toward Kris’s comm tech.
Leaving her rifle where it lay, Kris stood. She unbelted her holster and dropped it beside Sergeant O’Mally and began her own long walk to the parley field.
As Kris passed even with Gunny’s ridgetop position, she could hear the murmurs of the drugged wounded. As she approached her opposite, she came in hearing of his wounded. Many had yet to receive any care.
“Princess Kristine Longknife, I presume,” said a soldier with salt-and-pepper hair escaping from his helmet. The exhaustion that slowed his movements didn’t show up in a bent back or bowed shoulders.
“Colonel Henry Cortez,” Kris said, and offered her hand.
He shook it firmly. “I go by Hernando. Should I call you Princess?”
“Not unless you want to start another war,” Kris risked. “I go by Kris.”
“And we are stalling,” the colonel said with a bit of a scowl. “You sent forward the flag. Say what you have to say?”
“Before I start,” Kris said, “nothing I’m planning on saying would require us to start shooting at each other for thirty minutes or an hour. You have many wounded on the field. Would you like to tend to them?”
The colonel turned around, his frown growing deeper as he surveyed the butcher bill. “I’d like to remove them, but in truth, I don’t have all that much gear to tend them with. You may recall where my transport is stuck.”
“I have Marine medics and some of my civilian volunteers are doctors and nurses.”
“You have more medical supplies than you need?” he said, giving her a questioning glance.
Kris had no idea, but now was no time to stint. She wanted . . . needed . . . to get this proud man comfortable with the idea that he was the supplicant and she the one dispensing benefits.
“Yes. We’ve been defending. Keeping our heads down.”
“If we’d gotten down among you—” Cortez started.
Kris cut him off. “But you didn’t.”
“But we didn’t,” he echoed. “Yes, I agree to a cease-fire for two hours. Does that satisfy you?”
“For this valley, or the swamp side of the ridge as well?” Kris asked. The quiet here was still broken by the sound of gunfire from the other side of the ridge.
“Just how low are your farmers on ammunition?”
“Low on ammunition?” Kris echoed back a doubting question. The prime minister would have been so proud of his daughter’s skill at lying with a straight face.
Colonel Cortez snorted. “So be it. A cease-fire between all my forces and all those under your command. Can you guarantee the behavior of your irregulars, Lieutenant Longknife?”
“They’ve followed my orders so far. Corporal, take this flag of truce to the other side of the hill. Tell them what has been agreed upon here. And tell any of our volunteers that they are free to render medical aid to anyone who will accept it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the comm tech said. She saluted, then paused. “Are you comfortable without this parley flag, Your Highness?”
Kris glanced at the colonel.
“I’ll roast the eyes of any of those psalm singers who toss a shot our way. But don’t worry. I doubt any of them could hit a barn door at this range.”
Kris was tempted to commiserate with him. Certainly, her farmers shot no better. Instead, she said, “Now who is stalling?”
The colonel nodded. “And you came out here to tell me . . .”
“Have you talked with Captain Thorpe recently?” Kris began.
“No. I’ve been kind of busy of late, and we weren’t exactly on the best of terms after what you did to us this morning.”
“I’d say I was sorry about that, but I don’t really feel that way,” Kris admitted.
“So what about old Captain Bligh?”
Kris thought only the junior officers called him that. “He’s no longer in orbit,” she said softly.
Cortez shook his head. “Thorpe would never run from a fight. He’d never desert us,” the colonel snapped, but his eyes had gone to the sky.
“I have it on good report that rather than fight the Wasp, he broke out of orbit and is running for the nearest jump point.” That last was a guess, but if Thorpe really was running, why head for the farthest?
“You’ve talked with your captain?”
“No, my comm t
ech did.”
“And you just sent her off on an errand. I’d love to see her tell that lie to my face.”
“What did Thorpe’s ship have? A pair of eighteen-inchers? I saw those lasers fired. They couldn’t have been larger.”
“Yeah, that’s all our moneymen would go for.” The colonel looked like he’d gladly throttle those men, but it was clear, he was slowly being beaten down by the thought that he’d been deserted, left holding the hot potato for this whole affair.
“My Wasp sports four twenty-four-inch pulse lasers, standard Navy issue. It has Smart Metal™ shields. Do you really think Thorpe would have stood a chance in a fight?”
Cortez started to say something, then swallowed it. What he got out was “You know, I’ll have to wait until Thorpe is due over again before I will even consider surrendering.”
Kris nodded. “He should be overhead before the cease-fire is done. But I suspect my Wasp will be here first.” And alone.
A couple of Marines trotted by, equipped only with packs and bags marked with red crosses, stars, and crescents. Kris and the colonel watched civilian men and women bustle by, some carrying the small bags that have ever marked doctors, others carrying baskets of linens torn into bandages.
“I don’t know how you’re feeling about now,” the colonel finally said. “But if I don’t sit down, there’s a good chance I’ll fall down. And I don’t think that would look good to any of those watching us over rifle barrels.”
Kris easily folded her legs beneath her. “I’m glad you offered. I was only a second away from saying the same.”
They sat there, in the torn and blasted grass, for a long minute, watching as white coats, Marines, and civilians rendered what aid they could to the wounded. From the other side of the hill blessed silence finally came.
After five minutes of quiet, and a sigh that sounded more Irish than Spanish, Cortez said, “Why don’t you tell me your terms? I doubt I could get this command to defend itself against an angry troop of Girl Guides, much less a serious attack.”
Kris had no trouble remembering the terms she and several elders had talked about last night. “You will surrender your weapons, munitions, and all equipment brought by you to this planet. All material seized by you will be returned to the civilians from which it came. Upon doing so, you will be treated and protected as prisoners of war. All enlisted ranks will be offered transportation to their planet of origin and returned there.”
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