IronStar

by Hallman, Grant

  “What I will do, though, is steal every single stealth-capable missile from the Belleville’s magazines that we can cram into the three destroyers, and lay down some serious grief if I get even a few hours alone in the system. A minefield of Spit-4’s and Spit-5’s is not a task force, but it’ll kill a Wolf-class Patrol Cruiser or three, no sweat. By the way, I assume our civilian friends will exercise their Mercantile rights to be with the first vessels into the new system, but they will do so with nothing but carry-on luggage, and no staff at all. I need every bit of cubage we can muster on those tin cans, for missiles.

  “So, ladies and gentlemen, it comes down to a calculated risk. Not only the three destroyers, ultimately this entire task force is expendable in the cause of securing this system. If the worst happens, hopefully we’ll get a message off. In any case within another fifty days TT1 will be full strength and on-station. If I’m wrong and Admiral Mattison finds himself on his own, he’ll have two ‘Wagons, three heavy cruisers plus the Meredith, and six tin cans. If that’s not enough to stake our claim, we’re not just talking about a back-alley mugging any more, we’ll be in the middle of a war. And if the Kruss want a war out there on our end of the logistics lines, I am reliably assured they shall be given one.

  “Now, let’s take a look at sensor placements for the FTB’s, and try to fine-tune our defensive missile fields, assuming we get a chance to lay some. Here’s a few ideas…”

  Chapter 27 (Landing plus sixty-five): “Welcome to Talam”

  “We are going to have peace, even if we have to fight for it.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 20th century warrior and political leader; United States of America, Terra

  With the Kruss securely bound and its technology neutralized, Kirrah turned her attention to the delegation approaching in the small dinghy. Three O’dai, judging by their dress all captains, and two Wrth whom Peetha named as “Elders”. Two sailors manned the only two oars allowed the injured O’dai they had released earlier. Captain Crath’pae’s crew was currently downstream retrieving their small vessel. All other water transport was now destroyed, disabled, or in Talamae hands. At the Captain’s urging, several sailors had managed to salvage a mostly-intact chair and a short bench from the burning ships, and a small barrel now serving as conference table.

  Kirrah seated herself at this table now beside Captain Og’drai. Opposite were two upended boxes. Peetha’s warriors lined the left side of a path from the riverbank to the table, and Rash’koi’s men lined the right. Ten archers formed an arc behind her. The still-unconscious Kruss was held between two large soldiers to the left of the table. With Irshe standing at her right side and Peetha at Og’drai’s left, Kirrah imagined it made a properly intimidating sight as the small boat landed and the five enemies disembarked.

  “Welcome to Talam,” she called out, and Peetha and Captain Og’drai translated into the Wrth and O’dai languages. “Please feel secure in this truce. You have my word as Warmaster, you will return safely if you attempt no treachery. Let us sit and discuss a more profitable relationship. Please be seated, I regret there are only boxes to seat two of you.” The five leaders finished walking up the path between Kirrah’s guards, the two sailors remaining, reluctantly from the look of them, in the beached boat.

  “Thank you, Warmaster,” said the oldest-looking of the captains, in the Talamae tongue. “The translation is unnecessary. I am Fleet-Captain Schmado, these are Under-Captains Amokano and Staegro.” Each man gave a small bow as his name was mentioned, although judging from the sour expression on Amokano’s face, it pained him to bestow even that tiny courtesy.

  “And these represent the Wrth: Elder Graffkai’a,” a narrow-faced, sandy-gray-haired woman, “and Elder Makkan’a,” another wiry older Wrth, with an old scar crossing one closed eye. Captain Schmado and Elder Makkan’a seated themselves in the two available chairs. The Fleet-Captain continued:

  “I congratulate you, Warmaster, on your success today. No O’dai fleet has ever been destroyed to a ship, since the legends of the Ku’tu’fath. And none, ever, by shore-based action alone. I am sure my name will be long remembered.”

  “Thank you, Fleet-Captain. No dishonor should fall upon you. You had no idea what my weapons could do.” In fact, I wasn’t so sure myself, until today. “The Talamae are developing many new weapons. I tell you plainly, we followed the Wrth down-river to test the first and the smallest of them, and found your fleet almost by accident. Our meeting with Captain Durkalo got us off to a bad start. I trust we can do better this time.” Uncomfortable looks and averted eyes answered that point, even from the Wrth.

  “Because we have no reason to want war with O’dai, or with Wrth. What seems to be hostilities between us, is only a shadow of the larger enmity between that thing’s nation and all humans.” Kirrah nodded toward the Kruss sagging in her soldiers’ grasp. “I expect it and its fellows told you great things would follow your conquest of Talam. You seem surprised, Fleet-Captain Schmado, that I am both familiar with your passenger, and aware it has fellows in your home. Know that my nation has stood against these creatures for over a hundred years and knows their habits well.”

  “Warmaster, I am surprised that you seem familiar with our Heaven-messenger, but I am even more surprised to hear you say that there are more like it. How can you know this?” Oh-ho, so that’s how things are…

  “Their real name is ‘Kruss’, not ‘Heaven-messenger’. In their language, it means ‘dominators’. They come from a nation of worlds even farther away than my own home. Their name for ‘humans’, in their own language means ‘slow-meat’.” Give that time to sink in. Peetha’s running translation for the Wrth produced smoldering looks, first at Kirrah, then at the O’dai. Oh-ho, again!

  “This is how they work. When they discover a world like this one, with thinking life, they contact the largest nation they can find. They use that nation to conquer its neighbors, promising them glory but bringing as much damage to both sides as possible. When all are exhausted fighting, the Kruss take control, sometimes even with the help of the conquered. Within a generation, all serve the Kruss, and no one remembers what freedom was. These are the allies you have chosen.

  “I know there are more of them, because my object-that-speaks heard this one’s object-that-speaks talking to another, during our first engagement. Here is its sound:” Kirrah tapped a command, and from the wristcomp’s speaker came a hissing, stuttering, creaking static. Well, that’s the encrypted frame, in analog audio, anyway… “and here is the sound of this being’s native language:” Another few taps invoked a test phrase from the unit’s stored Kruss vocabulary. More sounds, even to the untrained ear more animal-alive than the computer-traffic, yet still hissing, croaking, with the occasional quick clatter-sound like a pebble in a gourd.

  “Warmaster, you are being frank with us. I will be frank in return. I learned of this being’s existence when I received my sailing orders. I was told it would be a secret passenger on board my flagship…” a glance over his right shoulder to the still-burning wreckage settling slowly into the water behind them - “and that it was traveling with us to study our warmaking. I was also told to watch for any strange new weapons. During the voyage, this being told me of evil beings from the dark of the sky, who sometimes fall to earth, and who preyed upon Heaven’s messengers and servants, both on earth and in the sky. You understand my problem - which of you shall I believe, and why?”

  “Fleet-Captain, I sit before you, a ‘devil from the sky’.” Kirrah’s lips pursed wryly and her dark green eyes looked into his gray-flecked green ones. “My home nation is the Regnum Draconis. It, like theirs, is a nation of many worlds. Most of our worlds are human, some are …non-human, other thinking beings. All our worlds have a voice in our government.” Well, let’s not go too deeply into Regnum politics, nobody’s perfect… “The Kruss also have worlds that are non-Kruss. Those worlds and those people are all slaves, with no voice, even on their own world.

  “But I speak of things you cann
ot see. Instead, look around you. You O’dai have, no doubt through honest error, allied with the Kruss. In return, the Kruss ‘study your warmaking’. The Talamae have allied with my Regnum, whom I represent. The Regnum shares its knowledge. Together with our allies, we build weapons to defeat our enemies. So, when the Kruss’s allies, with a fleet of twelve warships and five thousand mounted warriors, join battle with the Regnum’s allies - eighty horse and six small riverboats - it is the O’dai sailors who will walk home. It is the Wrth whose blood reddens the Geera, and the ‘Heavenly messenger’ who flees faster than a striking tso’ckhai. Flees away from its allies’ enemy.” Some very thoughtful looks were developing as Kirrah spoke.

  “Your nation has started down the wrong road. My Regnum has the strength to oppose the Kruss, and this world is much closer to our …harbor, than to theirs. We can throw them off and keep them off. Already, the Talamae plan trade with the Regnum. Very profitable trade. Help me, Schmado. Help me stop this small, useless war. And help me open trade with your nation.”

  “Warmaster, I will need time to consider your words. Even if I agreed to help you, know that I am in disgrace and no longer have influence with O’dai’s court.”

  “I understand, Fleet-Captain. You are invited to be a guest of Talam, to visit and confer with our leaders. Like my Wrth warriors here, you may also find putting your talents into my service is agreeable.” Schmado’s eyes followed her gesture to Peetha.

  And now for the ‘easy’ part…

  “Kirrah Warmaster greets the Wrth Elders. You have fought bravely today. I hope you have received my words about the Kruss, they are for the ears of all humans, yours equally with the O’dai’s. What do you think of the small creature who most enjoys this war?”

  “Kirrah’s words are new,” Peetha translated back. “This creature is not part of the treaty we made with the O’dai. We now offer to cease this war, keeping only the lands already taken.” At these words, the two O’dai under-captains looked stricken and angry.

  “I too would cease, and here, today, we shall find the means. However, Wrth have won no land from the Talamae. That must be understood. Raiding peaceful farming villages does not win land from us, it wins retribution not yet delivered, against the Wrth heartland.” Kirrah paused to allow Peetha’s translation to catch up. Now it was the Wrths’ turn to exchange opaque glances. She continued:

  “The Wrth and I have met twice now in battle - outside the walls of Talameths’cha, and today, farther down the river. The Wrth fought well both times, yet because of my superior weapons, each time I have lost one or two hands of soldiers and the Wrth have lost a thousand warriors. These are not the victories that would gain Wrth any Talamae lands.

  “Tell them: my Wrth warriors and I have judged that their war has been poorly led, so today I reached out across the river for the life of their war-leader. I can do this to any of them. Say we have begun preparations and make new, stronger weapons, to take this war into the Wrth heartland.” Grim, proud faces looked back at her across the table at the translation. “Peetha, help me allow them to stop the war. What is missing?”

  “Warmaster, it is dishonor to spill warrior’s blood and return without a war-prize. And they still need grazing lands, food is scarcer every winter.” Ah yes, time for what Angela calls the ‘gesture’. Would have called…

  “Tell them this. Kirrah Warmaster offers them treaty. They may graze their animals on Talamae lands, where Talamae have no farms, near the village of Malame’thsha.” I knew that landgrant would come in handy… “In exchange, they will pay to the landowners one animal from each five hands in the herd, every year. When others of my nation arrive, we will help them find other grazing lands, with no payment and no opposition. Tell them all Wrth must agree to peace, no more raiding. And they must return any prisoners.” As the translation proceeded, the Wrth across the table became slightly less grim, and their eyes narrowed in a more calculating way.

  Kirrah continued: “This war was begun by the Wrth, unprovoked. As a result, much blood has been spilt on both sides. If it stops now, there will be no war-prize for either side, but there will be a new thing, a peace-prize: if the Wrth become allies with me, their children may train as Regnum warriors. My weapons they have felt so far are as pebbles tossed by an old woman, compared to what their children may wield. The Regnum has need for brave fighters like the Wrth.” Peetha translated this, and the two Wrth spoke again.

  Instead of translating directly, Peetha asked: “Warmaster, they ask me why I abandoned the Wrth gods and people to serve you. What shall I tell them?”

  “Tell them your truth, Peetha. Tell them whom you serve, and why.” Peetha swallowed, seemed to straighten a little, and spoke for some minutes to the Wrth Elders. More words were exchanged, and finally she turned back and said:

  “Warmaster, they ask for a grazing tax of one animal in eight hands, and no tax for a herd of less than eight, that is, forty animals.” Kirrah took a deep breath. Whew, now we’re down to haggling commercial contracts, I guess the war is over. Irshe signaled and bent his head to her ear, whispered. She nodded and said:

  “Peetha, tell them one for every six hands, but if the herd is smaller, then the landowner shall receive all the wool from the first sha’pluuth of every four animals.”

  Haggling continued for another half hour. In the end, it was settled as the twentieth animal out of every thirty-three, plus shearing rights on the fourth out of every nine. Kirrah tried to imagine the Wrth herders carefully apportioning their flock sizes to multiples of nine or thirty-three, minus one, to minimize the grazing tax. Sharp trading was a lot easier to deal with than raiding.

  Which left the issue of the two hundred or so O’dai sailors stranded on the north shore of the river. Kirrah was sorely tempted to let them starve or walk home. However as a show of good faith she agreed to supply food for the sailors at a rendezvous point twenty kilometers up-river, to be delivered in four days and to be billed to the O’dai Navy at current rates for food in Talameths’cha. The Talamae would also provide transport back to O’dakai, in about twenty-five days, for those not wanting a four or five hundred kilometer overland hike across the plains of not-grass. Fleet-Captain Schmado would return with the Talamae to supervise the purchasing and loading of the supplies onto cargo boats.

  Their conclave finished, the other four returned by dinghy to the north shore. Those of Kirrah’s injured soldiers who could not ride were loaded onto the four remaining Talamae boats to begin the upstream journey. Kirrah dispatched a pair of scouts to Talameths’cha with news of their victory and requesting preparation of a suitable holding cell for their off-world prisoner. Her main force - about sixty mounted soldiers and a handful of casualties who could ride, set about packing their supplies for the long overland journey back to the capital. With them would travel the crew from the riverboat sunk downriver; the O’dai Schmado and the bound and still unconscious Kruss. By mid-afternoon a long column of Wrth could be seen winding north away from the river, and the Talamae party mounted and set off up the south shore, Kirrah on her familiar horse ‘Whoopsie’.

  That evening, they pitched camp and prepared field rations. Which seemed better than the Regnum Navy’s emergency rations, or the even-worse Royal Marines’ fare Kirrah had once sampled. She took her bowl and spoon with a nod of thanks to the cook. The sun was set, the sky gone deep lemon-yellow in the west, a few orange-edged clouds still floating. To the east, the sky was a deep blue, shading toward a black horizon, and in between a delicate shade of cyan fading to yellow-green overhead. Two of the moons were visible, the large one just rising, smoky red, and the small fast moon a jewel moving visibly among the first stars. A light breeze picked up at dusk, blowing wild scents from the west. Kirrah joined the circle around the nearest campfire.

  “How is your arm, Rash’koi?”

  “It will be stiff for a few days, Warmaster. I think it will heal cleanly. We might want to ask our armorers for sleeves on these chain mail vests. And leggin
gs, several of our casualties took a quarrel in a leg.”

  “Please take care of that for us when we return.” The Lieutenant nodded. They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, and she added: “Did you notice, Rash’koi, on the journey down-river, we were two forces - ‘Kirrah’s Wrth’ and ‘the Warmaster’s Talamae soldiers’ - and on the ride back this afternoon, we were one force?”

  “I did, Warmaster. No one can say your Wrth warriors are less than brave and loyal. Not in the presence of any of the soldiers they served with today. I believe on board that last O’dai ship, the enemy was injured as much by their haste to escape Peetha’s sword, as by any of our weapons. Although it was appreciated when you and Irshe arrived with a few more arrows. But I am amazed by the energy and endurance of all these loyal Wrth, as well as their skills.” The young woman’s eyes across the campfire were restless, as though unused to receiving praise.

  “I also remember the part Peetha played in negotiating with the Wrth,” Kirrah added. “I sensed they wanted to cease their war, that they felt betrayed by their O’dai allies and forced into a position they did not want. I also suspect they were disturbed by the sight of the Kruss. Yet, Peetha, your advice was critical in letting them stop with honor. What they call honor. Somehow, after you spoke, it became merchants haggling price instead of war-leaders debating territory. What did you say to them, to cause this shift?” Peetha paused, spoon halfway lifted, and thought a moment.

  “Warmaster, they were amazed to see us fighting under your blade, they thought us all dead behind the walls of Talameths’cha. They asked me why I abandoned the Wrth gods and the ways of my youth, to serve you. Actually, they said ‘to serve the foreign war-demon’. I believe they are in awe of you, my Warmaster.” Another thoughtful pause. “I told them you had demanded our lives and our service, and promised better weapons and glorious combat. I told them you engaged the entire force of iron-clad in our defense, and defeated them with words alone. I told them your words were true, that your judgements were wise and …there is no word, in Talamae, it means ‘lucky’, but more than that… ‘correct’. There is no better quality in a leader.”