“Surrender!” Kirrah shouted in the Talamae language. “Surrender and live!” The two standing men looked at each other and turned, ran for the far side of the ship and plunged over into the river. “…or swim and live, suits me fine…”, she added in a conversational tone. Irshe cocked an eyebrow at her as he drew and loosed another bodkin arrow. On the siege ship, the defenders were visibly giving ground, under the combined assault of Peetha's warriors and the murderously efficient longbow volleys. The damaged excise ship they stood on seemed to be tilting slightly as the three burning vessels spun slowly in the current.
Kirrah watched as Peetha's sword opened a hideous wound across the face of yet another opponent, followed by a masterful parry of a second attacker's overhead swing, and a riposte that left him clutching the spurting stump of his wrist. Suddenly the remaining O'dai broke as a unit and ran for the rails, leaping into the water. In the space of a few heartbeats, Kirrah's forces were in undisputed possession of three tangled, damaged, burning ships, one settling slowly into the river. Cheers rose from the Talamae on both ships and from the south shore.
In a few moments, one of the small Talamae boats pulled away for the south shore, trailing a stout rope. As the fleeing O'dai sailors began reaching the north shore, the enterprising boatman reached the south bank with a tow line, where he was met by the remaining twenty Talamae soldiers with horses, and they began pulling the ships to the south side of the river. As these preparations continued, Kirrah returned to the three O'dai she had crippled. Two were where she had left them, one seemed to have dragged himself overboard.
“Where is the little one?” she demanded. “The one with a tail?” The two men looked at one another blankly. “Do you speak Talamae?” More blank looks, frightened and in pain from their leg wounds. Captain Og’drai was summoned to translate. In another five minutes, the entire tangled flaming mass was grounded and secured by ropes on the south bank.
“What does the Warmaster gain, but burning ships?” Captain Og’drai asked, as he arrived at her side. The fires were becoming intense, the masts and rigging dropping dangerous flaming debris, and flames shooting from the few portholes on the most damaged ship. The deck under them was becoming warm.
“I believe there is still a powerful enemy on board one of these ships,” Kirrah responded. “Watch closely, people. Remember what I said, it will be small, but strong and very fast. It may be armed as I am.” Or worse, much worse… if it's really there, and not just a comm unit used by some O'dai, and if it doesn't escape out the other side of one of the ships in a military-grade powered suit and just walk across the bottom of the river… “Peetha, get ten warriors mounted, and everyone ready with ropes. If it runs, run it down and stop it.
“Captain, ask these men where they have seen a small person, about as large as a six-year child, but with a tail and wearing armor. Tell them when we find this person, we will help them off the ship.” More words were exchanged, in a singsong patois that seemed to serve the mariners.
“They beg your mercy, they have not seen such a person, they know nothing about it. I think they are telling the truth. They are very frightened.” Can't say I blame them… Within a few minutes the fire forced them all over the side and into their boats, where they transferred the injured men from both factions onto the south shore. Kirrah, Irshe and Peetha stood watching as the ships flamed higher, sending billows of gray and black smoke into the noon air. From the opposite bank, Wrth and O'dai both watched the destruction with helpless fascination. One by one the masts fell crashing to the deck or hissing into the river. Flames roared from gaps in the decking. One of the ships was already settling onto the riverbottom, aflame to the waterline.
“Warmaster, are you sure your enemy is still in this… cookfire?” Peetha asked.
“Yes. No, I'm not sure it is here at all, but if it was on one of these ships, it could still be hiding. Its armor will protect it from the heat, from even direct flames for a few minutes. But that protection will cost it some of its …strength. I still do not know what type of armor it wears. We will wait until these ships are burned to the waterline if we must.”
Another clatter and shower of sparks as a piece of decking gave way. More crashes and bumps. Pieces fell into the water with a hiss of steam. Moments later, one of the archers shouted as a head in smooth dark-gray armor appeared out of the water, a few meters from the bank. Suddenly spray flew as the rest of the hundred-twenty centimeter figure erupted from the river, armored, two-legged, short-armed and with a thick muscular tail. Inhumanly fast, it streaked up the bank and between the startled Talamae soldiers. Kirrah drew her sidearm, horses reared and men made grabs for the fleet figure. One man actually managing to step in front of it. In a blur of scything limbs and claws the small figure seemed to run right up and over the man’s body. In a heartbeat it was through their ranks and dashing west across the open plains, parallel to the river. The unfortunate soldier in the thing’s path swayed, bleeding from half a dozen deep slashes, and collapsed. Eight mounted horsemen set out in pursuit. Incredibly, the gap continued to widen.
“Down!” she shouted, taking aim at the fleeing figure. Men dropped into the weeds around her. The pursuing horsemen wove back and forth between her and the fleeing target. In twenty seconds, all were out of reasonable beamer range.
“Kirrah's sky-enemies are faster than a tso’ckhai,” Irshe murmured, as she put up her weapon in frustration. “Look!” Indeed, even at a kilometer’s distance Kirrah could see one of the long snake-like predators rear out of concealment on the not-grass and strike at the small being. The Wrth horsemen veered to give the tso’ckhai a respectful berth, but the Kruss actually ran down the length of the monster’s body, easily evading its whiplash strike.
“Will the horses be able to catch it?”
“I don't know. I've never imagined I'd see a footrace between a Kruss and a Wrth pony. Well, I suspect it wasn't armed. I think it would have fired on us if it could have.”
“It seemed to me, Kirrah’jasa, that the …creature was more interested in departing than in fighting. There are a great many of us, and from its actions, I doubt it wanted to be seen.”
“You have wise eyes, Irshe’jasa. I believe our O'dai guests got a good look at what their captains were hiding… Captain! Can you rescue one of the small boats off those burning warships?” Kirrah gestured to where another small dinghy dangled by one remaining rope from the stern of a burning ship. In moments, a couple of Talamae sailors pulled the small boat up on the bank.
“Captain, please translate for our guests.” Captain Og’drai stepped to her side and spoke to the two injured O'dai sailors.
“Have you ever seen that small creature before?” After a brief exchange in O'dai, the stocky captain responded:
“Warmaster, they are as surprised as we were. I believe they are telling truth.”
“Good. Tell them this. Kirrah Warmaster is releasing you to your countrymen. Tell all of them what you saw here. Your fleet carried a passenger who is not human. It is a beast that thinks as well as men. Its name is Kruss. Its nation is the enemy of all humans, on this world and on many more.
“This world is now under the protection of my nation, the nation I came from. Our name is Draconis. We have the strength to oppose the Kruss. If you want to live as free men, you have chosen the wrong allies. They will consume you. Make alliance with us, with Talam, and end this war. We should be helping one another, not fighting.
“If you do this, I promise you, you will grow rich in trade. And when my countrymen arrive, they will be able to heal your injuries, and you will both walk again. You have my word, as Warmaster of Talam and as officer of the Regnum Draconis Survey Service.
“Go now. If your officers will speak with me, and not try treachery as Durkalo did, tell them to row back here, I will meet in truce and guarantee their safe return. I will wait one takka for them to return in this boat.”
The sailors, one with a ruined foot and one with a rough binding on
an ugly beamer wound across his lower leg, were set not ungently into the small dinghy, and pushed off from the bank. Looking apprehensively at their former captors, they rowed vigorously out into the current.
Kirrah spared a glance west across the plain where six of Peetha’s pursuit warriors were still discernible, riding hard after a no-longer-visible Kruss. The distant tso’ckhai had resumed its invisibility somewhere on the not-grass. By mutual consent, the forces on opposite sides of the river had ceased active hostilities, and the two rowing O'dai were drawing up to the opposite bank. The Talamae forces turned their attention to the care of their own injured, and Kirrah sank down on a piece of baggage to rest, not before spreading her suit's photocloth in the hot noon sunlight to begin recharging her sidearm.
Half an hour later her pursuit party returned, with an unconscious Kruss bound and slung over the withers of one of their lathered horses. Its rider reined in and conferred briefly with Peetha, then the two of them lifted the small being off the horse and carried it a few meters to drop it proudly, like a hound with a rabbit, at Kirrah's feet. She stood, stunned that they could have caught the creature and a more than a little shocked that they were able to subdue it. The other riders turned to the care of their hard-run mounts.
“Peetha, that is amazing! How did they catch it?”
“Nakka'ti! Report to the Warmaster!” Peetha barked. Somewhat to Kirrah's surprise, the wiry man was able to communicate in the Talamae language. Homework, I guess…
“Yes Peetha. Warmaster, we pursued this beast as you saw, and another two hands of doi'la besides. It was very fast, at first we could hardly keep it in sight. Then it began to slow, and we pressed two of the horses hard, and held back the others a little in case the first two foundered. The two gained on the creature, the…”
“Kruss,” Peetha supplied.
“Yes, the Kruss. It then ran even faster, then suddenly it fell to the ground as dead. We saw it was breathing, so we trussed it with our war-lassos and brought it to you.”
“You have done very well, Nakka'ti,” Kirrah said. “This is an important captive.” …you have no idea!
“Bring more ropes, strong mooring lines from the boats. This Kruss must be secured very well. Listen to me, all of you. This creature will deceive you. It is as small as a child, but as clever as a seasoned warrior and as strong as two men. Do not underestimate it. Everyone has seen how fast it is. Its strength is in its legs and the claws on its feet, in its teeth, and in its speed. The strongest and best warrior among us, armed and armored, is no match for this thing. Even without its armor, it could easily slay a warrior with teeth and speed, before he could move to defend himself. We must keep it from using its legs.” As Kirrah spoke, several of the boatmen arrived with stout three-centimeter fiber ropes and began wrapping the Kruss from the ankles up.
“Wrap its tail to its left leg, so… that will keep it from jumping,” Kirrah instructed. As they continued working, she examined the Kruss' suit. It appeared to be a standard-issue hostile-environment suit, as tough and versatile as hers, but not powered as combat armor could be. She removed both its bushknives - slightly curved, dark blue metal, gleaming and wickedly sharp, longer than her own survival blade - and the few other loose tools clipped to the outside of the suit.
The helmet was open to the collar, probably in an attempt to get more air for an extended run. The being's head was about the size and shape of an ancient Terran football, one end being the snout. Black lips closed over a predator's maw. Brown-dappled gray skin covered the face and throat, and the top of the head and back and sides of the neck were overlaid with soft, short gray and brown fur. Ears were unadorned shallow depressions on either side of the head, low on the skull, and air soughed regularly in and out of a pair of openings in the skull just above and behind them. Forward-facing eyes currently closed with sphincters of dark skin, rather than terrestrial-style eyelids, completed the picture. The creature's body plan would have reminded a twentieth century Terran of a cross between a baboon and a miniature Tyrannosaurus Rex. It would have been described by a fifteenth-century Terran as a devil.
Now if I remember my xenotechnology classes… Kirrah examined the ends of the armored sleeves covering the Kruss' short upper limbs. Yes, there it is… As soon as its legs were securely bound, she knelt with her beamer set to cut/weld and thumbed it on. A pale yellow thread of light sprang from its business end to touch the bulge at the back of a small rod nestled along the bottom of the Kruss suit's left forearm. A spot on the metallic bulge began to glow, dull red, then orange, then purple, then brilliant white. After almost half a minute, the metal of the bulge gave a small sigh and sagged. Tiny crackling sounds and a wisp of smoke announced the complete destruction of the Kruss' built-in beamer.
Let's make a thorough job of it… As her companions watched in fascination, she burned two more holes in the alien suit's backpack, hopefully ruining its power storage and life support mechanisms and destroying its communications gear. As an added precaution, she ordered its forelimbs tied to its sides and took Peetha’s hip-knife and lashed it across the suit's collar behind the being's head, where it would either interfere with the helmet's closing, or possibly decapitate the Kruss as it closed. Now we can talk. Kirrah straightened and said:
“Nakka'ti, Peetha.” The two materialized in front of her as though by magic. “To express my thanks for your excellent service today, I present you each with a war-prize.” Their eyes widened in feral delight as she held out the two captured Kruss knives. “Only do not be surprised by their sharpness. Your iron blades are as grass to this edge.” The man picked up a spent crossbow bolt from the not-grass nearby and swung the Kruss blade against the pencil-thick hardwood. The shaft parted cleanly with no apparent effort. He drew his own iron blade and pressed the two edges together. The iron weapon yielded visibly under moderate hand-pressure, leaving a five-millimeter nick in its edge. Nakka'ti gave a huge smile, bowed and saluted his Warmaster. Peetha was holding her new blade like a medieval knight who’d just been handed the Holy Grail.
“Warmaster, the O'dai are coming to talk,” said Captain Og'drai a few minutes later. “And the Wrth, looks like. You finally managed to get their attention.”
Chapter 26: Flag Operations Center, RNS Belleville. Tubespace.
“Further, every War is rich in particular facts, while at the same time each is an unexplored sea, full of rocks which the General may have a suspicion of, but which he has never seen with his eye, and round which, moreover, he must steer in the night.” - General Carl Von Clausewitz, ‘On War’, 1832 A.D.; Berlin, Terra
Lucinda Dunning stepped through the hatchway into the cool, dimly-lit nerve center of her small task force, buried deep within the heart of her flagship. Captain DaCosta was huddled over one of the auxiliary display tanks with two crew plus his XO, Commander Rachel McKai - a steel-haired, steel-eyed woman a little shorter and a little older than Lucinda. The four looked up at her approach, and an ensign at a workstation to the left of her hatchway exclaimed:
“Admiral on deck!” which immediately brought the entire skeleton staff of a dozen men and women to attention.
“As you were, people,” the Admiral said, casually returning the salutes. She crossed briskly to the small group huddled with the Captain. Slowly the room’s sounds of hushed efficiency returned. “What do you have for me, Captain?” she asked, glancing at the view in the display tank. “Isn’t that the hablet the Arvida-Yee reported?”
“Yes, Ma’am, it is. When we dropped sub-c just an hour ago for our regular nav sighting, a mailtube from NavInt Trailway was waiting for us. It seems shortly after we got under way, their analysts came up with… well, I’ve asked Lieutenant Maurais, my sensor specialist, to brief you.”
“Ahem, aye Sir, Ma’am.” The young sandy-haired and slightly nervous man touched the tank’s controls, and the view shifted to display a schematic of the solar system S22041. “The Admiral will recognize our destination system, and here’s the last available
data on the scout’s course…” A thin yellow line stretched across the muted pastel rings denoting planets’ orbits, crossing high over the sun’s north pole and ending abruptly well over the hablet’s position.
“The scout released their mailtube here…” a cursor flashed at the end of the yellow line, “…ballistic, with a delayed activation.” A dashed yellow line projected well out of the tank’s field of view. The prudent act of a properly paranoid captain, Luce reflected. I just hope you were paranoid enough…
“As the Admiral remembers,” the Lieutenant continued, “the scout also released a drone some hours earlier which preceded them into the system, also ballistic.” A green line appeared in the display, nearer the ecliptic, and passing close over the blue spark of the new hablet. “The drone’s data, up to the point they released the mailtube, was included with their own sensor uptake in their last …ah, that is, their latest message.”
“Yes, Lieutenant, I understand this much. I believe their probe’s data was just slightly more informative than their own sensors.”
“Yes Ma’am.” The young man swallowed unobtrusively. Don’t bore your admiral, son, get to the drek. If there weren’t drek, we wouldn’t be having this meeting…
“What we just received from Trailway, Ma’am, is the result of cross-correlation of the two sensor uptakes, the drone’s and the scout’s. This was done as a matter of routine, but someone in the Analysis group took a special interest and applied a new piece of experimental AI tech to the correlation problem. What they came up with is a significant improvement in image resolution. By comparing simultaneous views from the two different angles down through the atmosphere, the Scout’s and the drone’s, they were able to eliminate more of the atmospheric distortion… it’s just brilliant work… yes, sorry Captain,” the intense young man twitched as the Captain shifted his feet a little impatiently.
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