IronStar

by Hallman, Grant

  “Marcus, do you suppose we could use the shuttle’s beamers against those big doors? It would stop a lot of this useless injury, and sooner or later someone’s going to get killed if they keep trying to attack us.”

  “Well, we have been attacked,” the Marine Lieutenant replied. “I suppose a non-lethal demonstration would be within the ‘minimum response’ terms of engagement. Guns, you have a clear shot at those big doors?”

  “Guns, that’s affirmative, sir. You want one big bang or a slow burn?” Kirrah switched back to external speakers and let the translator speak for her in the O’dai tongue:

  “Kirrah Warmaster is offended by these O’dai’s inhospitality,” she said. “Perhaps someone more courteous will greet us if we knock on your door.” She switched to Unit General channel and replied “One shot, if you please, don’t overdo it. I want pieces for souvenirs.” Lieutenant Warden signaled his squad to move to one side of the beam path, opening a space between them and the nearest O’dai swordsmen. A streamlined turret extruded from the top of the shuttle near the front of the tailfin. Many of the O’dai turned to stare at the pair of eight-centimeter black muzzles that swung to point over their heads.

  Kirrah added, “Cycle a warning flash first, Guns, no need to blind these men.”

  “Aye, Ma’am,” the voice replied. In a few seconds, a thin flash of bright yellow light sprang out in twin lines from the turret. Even through her closed eyelids and polarized helmet, Kirrah could feel the intense strobe of brilliant yellow that followed, then almost immediately heard a tremendous crash to her left. Bits of molten brass and shards of stone fell among the group, spattering some O’dai and setting more than one cloth uniform afire. The silence that filled the courtyard was broken only by the sound of three or four shocked guardsmen beating out the minor blazes. When the smoke cleared, one of the bronze doors was visible hanging by one hinge, bent and with a meter-wide bite taken out of it. The other door was lying in pieces all up and down the inside hallway, the outer steps, and scattered across half the courtyard.

  Kirrah stepped forward to the man she had identified as the commander of the swordsmen. Peetha released her kneeling captive and swung in at her commander’s side.

  “You!” Kirrah exclaimed, half a meter from the startled swordsman. “I am Kirrah Warmaster of Talam, and I am tired of playing with fools. All your lives are coins in my hand, to spend or keep as I choose. Now if you cannot find me a person to receive twenty of your wounded countrymen, say so and I will look in another part of the city. But stop bothering me before I kill all of you out of aggravation!” The man stepped back, as much from the sheer intensity of her cold anger as the words coming from her suit’s speakers, or the violence just visited on his palace. Another soldier at one side, behind a wavering rank of crossbowmen, spoke up:

  “We will send for an emissary. Do not move from this place.” At his orders, one of the bowmen scurried across the courtyard and out through the gate in the inner wall, and another made his way gingerly among the still-hot debris, up the steps, through the shattered brass doors and disappeared down the hallway. Kirrah stood and waited perhaps five minutes, then a group of servants came down the same hallway supporting a lean black-robed old man tottering on a cane. He continued on his own, picking his way down the debris-littered steps and across the ruined garden to stand a few meters from the group. His blue eyes were a bit rheumy but steady, his thin reedy voice was audible behind the translator’s neutral over-voice.

  « I am Parsh’ap, tutor to Prince Paedako. If he is here and injured, I wish to see him. »

  “Thank you, Parsh’ap. I am Kirrah Warmaster of Talam. One moment please.” Kirrah switched to the Unit Auxiliary channel. “Irshe, please bring the wounded out, the Prince first.” Seconds later the shuttle’s door opened and that young man, with Irshe holding one arm, stepped down the ramp and crossed the few meters to where Kirrah stood. Her suitcom chimed again, the shuttle’s comm system repeating the signal from above on the Unit General channel:

  “Shuttle One, Argosy, we see activity in your area. Figures on the roof of the building in front of you, more massing just inside the walls north and west, including what looks like horses. Also west behind the inner wall they’re moving some large piece of equipment, looks like a construction derrick or something, the main beam is pointed directly away from you at the moment.” Irshe and the Prince stopped in front of the old man.

  “Acknowledge, Argosy. We’ll try and be quick,” Kirrah replied, without remembering to wait for Lieutenant Warden’s response. “Guns, suggest you arm dorsal point defense immediately.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the voice responded, also barely noticing the source of his orders. The turret on top of the shuttle was joined by a second turret extruded farther forward, sporting four three-centimeter muzzles on shorter tubes.

  “Parsh’ap,” Kirrah turned to the black-robed man. “We see your soldiers on the rooftop. We see your cavalry behind the walls, and your siege engine being prepared. None of these can harm us. Please tell them to not provoke us farther, lest more O’dai are harmed needlessly. We wish only to return your wounded, and depart.”

  « Kirrah of Talam is observant. I assure you, if there is no more damage, we mean no harm. We want only our own back. Are there more injured? And how is my young student? Whose blood stains your garments? » he added, turning to the Prince, who looked ready to burst into tears again. The young man stumbled to his old teacher and grasped his hand.

  Kirrah replied, “There are twenty on this vessel. Bring them forth!” The first armored Talamae soldier backed down the ramp carrying one end of a litter bearing one of the injured O’dai.

  The Prince kissed the old man’s hand and blurted in O’dai, « It wasn’t my fault, Magister! All the supplies I demanded did not arrive! And the curse-of-heaven weapon did no good, none! And the Talamae no longer fight fairly! They did not take to the field where the invisible blade could cut them down like the Heaven-messenger promised! They attacked at night, with fire and star-powder! And they used evil magic to make the sky roar! »

  The old man looked pityingly at the young Prince, and back to Kirrah. « What of the rest of our army? » he asked.

  She replied, “They are defeated. One in four have died, most live. The survivors are being escorted to the border of O’dai, afoot, by Talamae cavalry. They shall arrive in about a tenday. Parsh’ap, this war is over. Talam has the Regnum Draconis as ally. This vessel behind me, which so easily opens O’dai’s gates, is the least of our siege engines. There is no more need for bloodshed. We do not attack unless attacked.

  “Talam has a treaty with the Regnum, for defense and trade. Talam will grow rich from this trade and its merchants will travel among the stars, where other humans like us live. The ‘heaven-messengers’ have lied to you, and they have lost this entire world. Join with us, and prosper. We want no war.” Behind her, the last of the O’dai casualties were being settled on the ground well away from the shuttle’s belly thrusters, between Kirrah and the gaping palace door. Issthe, who had deplaned to assist, now came and stood beside Kirrah.

  The old man turned to the Prince, who was trembling slightly. « Who has spilled this royal blood, my student? » he asked, gesturing at the stains still discoloring the young O’dai’s leggings.

  The youth turned and pointed to Peetha, standing to Kirrah’s right. The translation program stuttered briefly on his unknown vocabulary. « This bzzzzz, she attacked me with treachery, in the very royal tent! I zzzzz, but she… cut me! I demand war on these bzzzzz, all of them! Royal blood demands it! » The Prince turned and looked scornfully and triumphantly at Kirrah.

  Issthe touched her comm button and spoke within her helmet, a little loud in the suitcomm, “Kirrah, beware. The old man is going to…”

  The rest of her words were interrupted by Parsh’ap himself, his voice echoed through Kirrah’s translator, «You are correct, my student. They should not have spilled your blood. » He twisted the end of his cane
, it came away from the shaft with a flash of bright metal that swung in a swift arc in his hand. The Prince clutched at his throat, vivid red blood spurting between his fingers. Eyes wide and mouth open in shock, he spun to face his unexpected attacker. His momentum carried him around in a descending corkscrew, as his knees folded to land him in a heap against the old man’s robed legs. « I should have drawn it, » the old man finished.

  Kirrah’s beamer was out, several of the Marines’ weapons were leveled, too late to make a difference.

  « You allowed a woman to defeat your army, O’dai’s army. You allowed yourself to be bled by a woman. You are not O’dai. » Prince Paedako was making a rapid series of gasping sounds, panting and gurgling while his lungs filled with blood.

  The old man shook the Prince’s fingers irritably from his robes, and added, « Your body will be fed to the bzzzz. The King has one son less. You will not be much missed. » The boy slumped to the ground, staring wildly about, chest heaving and limbs twitching into stillness.

  Parsh’ap stepped back a disdainful pace, looked at the shocked circle of faces around him and said, « That was no business of yours. Nor is this! » He put a small object to his lips and blew two shrill whistles. Suddenly men appeared at the top of the palace wall, and crossbow bolts sleeted down. Not again! Kirrah thought, then realized they were not aimed at her squad, but at the injured O’dai soldiers she had brought back, lying helpless in the courtyard under the wall.

  “Marcus! Stop them!” she screamed. The Marines raised their weapons and ten heavy beamers cut loose a full-power barrage of automatic fire against the rooftop archers. Each weapon cycled five caseless rounds per second from its external magazine, each round delivering the explosive force of a hand grenade out of a miniature one-use energy cell. The air lit with a crisscross web of incandescent yellow bolts and hammering, thunderous explosions as rock and sparks and fragments of masonry flew from the walltop. Men and pieces of men and equipment showered down from the intended ambush and landed in steaming bloody gobbets among the growing pile of rubble in the flower beds at the base of the palace wall. A section of flat roof behind the shattered wall collapsed with a crash, sending up even more clouds of dust. As suddenly, the volley halted, echoes rumbling uneasily across the city.

  Kirrah looked around at the carnage. All but one of the Marines were facing the palace wall, Issthe had reflexively and needlessly thrown one arm over her face, Irshe and Peetha were in a half-crouch. A single Marine stood facing the opposite direction, eyes scanning, beamer ready, deadly alert to a second ambush from behind. Remind me never to try to sneak up on Adrianne, Kirrah noted to herself as she recognized the other woman through her helmet. Even in the middle of a firefight, she was facing the other way, ready for the unexpected.

  The blackrobed O’dai Parsh’ap uncovered his ears, stood fully erect, and said in his reedy, academic-sounding voice, « Perhaps I was a little hasty in judging the Prince’s performance against you, Kirrah of Talam. Nevertheless, he was a fool, and brought shame to his country and King because of it. What will you do with your new friends? I believe a few have escaped my judgement. » Indeed three of the wounded Kirrah had transported from Talameths’cha were crawling, or trying to crawl, the few meters between their litters and the group of Regnum Marines, who were menacing the line of crossbowmen deployed in the garden. The other wounded were pinned, some by multiple quarrels, to the ground.

  Kirrah caught the old man’s eye and replied, “Parsh’ap, I rescind my offer of cooperation. The O’dai nation is led by wicked, foolish men. You are unworthy to participate in the benefits I am bringing to this world. From this time forward, your nation will be excluded from our friendship. I will leave you to rot, while the rest of the world prospers around you, until your people rise up and destroy their rulers, or perish with them.

  “I offer your King one chance to reverse my judgement. If he renounces this butchery and sends me your head, I will accept his apology. Tell him I said so. Peetha, Irshe, help Issthe return these men to the shuttle. When they are healed by Regnum and Talamae arts, they may return here or not, as they choose.”

  « I will convey your words, » the old man said, bowing ironically to Kirrah. « I believe our business is concluded. » He turned and walked calmly to the ruined palace doorway, his exit spoiled slightly by the necessity to clamber past large fallen chunks of the palace’s cornice and upper wall.

  Kirrah turned, sickened, to join the others as they carried the three surviving injured men back up their ramp. The original O’dai swordsmen stood stunned by the violence, moving like sheep out of the way of the Marines.

  Suddenly from outside the courtyard she heard a shout, followed by a complex creaking sound and a rattle of wooden beams, and looked up to see the arm of a trebuchet swing up above the inner wall, about a hundred meters off. From its sling rose a half-meter wide barrel with a flaming rag stuffed into its bung, and more flames licking around its sides as it lifted in a high parabolic arc through the air towards them.

  “Guns-s!” Kirrah and Marcus shouted in unison. “Incoming!” the Marine Lieutenant elaborated.

  “What… Oh!” The four muzzles on the forward dorsal turret swiveled in a blur to track the airborne object, and four yellow streaks stabbed out to intercept it halfway down its descending arc. A large fireball bloomed in the air thirty meters overhead, and a big greasy black cloud of smoke rose into the sky. The blast wave struck them with a dull thud, knocking down a few of the O’dai. Droplets of burning oil spattered down, re-igniting several of the O’dai’s uniforms, but most of the two-hundred-odd liters of flammable liquid seemed to have been consumed in the airburst.

  “Damn! Sorry about that, sir! I was configured for metal objects, that thing was made of wood!”

  “We forgive you this time, Cavanaugh,” Lieutenant Warden said a little dryly. “I believe optical triggering might be indicated. I doubt the indies are going to lob a mortar shell at us. Belay that, they might. Be ready for anything, Gary, including trained birds!”

  “Aye, Sir,” the somewhat chagrined voice replied.

  From the top of the shuttle’s ramp, Kirrah turned to the thoroughly dispirited O’dai guardsmen standing or wandering aimlessly nearby. “Tell everyone what you have seen today. Tell them only wicked men kill their own Prince, and only fools fight Regnum fire with arrows and barrels of oil. Tell them their King is destroying their country’s future when he could be leading them into prosperity. And tell them their sons in the Nineteenth Army are returning, a gift from Kirrah Warmaster. We will now destroy that siege engine as we depart.”

  The ramp cycled closed and the belly thrusters came on-line. They lifted fifty meters into the air and hovered west across the garden’s inner wall, lightly scorching and scattering a troop of cavalry poised there for some further mischief. At Kirrah’s request the bow beamer was set to low power and continuous fire, and the single trebuchet was burned to charcoal and ash where it stood, without further human casualties. They turned and rose into the sky, treating the O’dai populace to the sight and sound of an Assault Shuttle departing on its main rockets.

  “Well, that was one for the records,” commented Lieutenant Warden as they settled in for the short flight home. “Marine combat gear versus antique armor and swords! I can’t decide whether they’re brave or stupid or both!”

  “Both, I’m afraid,” said Captain Schmado. “They are more afraid of being punished than being killed, and with good reason. The entire ruling house will be aroused against Talam because their palace was attacked, but worse, because of bringing them a wounded prince. He should have died in battle or been victorious. Dai knows, his father gave him a large enough army.”

  “I do not understand how that will make much difference,” said Irshe from across the aisle. “They already wanted to kill us, and couldn’t. What can be worse? And what can they hope to accomplish against us?”

  “Captain Schmado is right,” said Issthe. “That man Parsh’ap used to enjo
y killing, I think, but now he denies himself even that small perversion. He is a being with no guidance but mind and greed. If the other rulers are like him, they will not cease from trying to harm others, including Talam.”

  The cabin comm chimed softly, and Flight Engineer Thornlea’s voice paged Lieutenant Warden for an incoming call. With his helmet retracted, the call was audible to others.

  “Warden, go.”

  “Corporal Sengli, Sir. We have a problem here. Another Kruss, it managed to get into the city on some sort of stealthed aircraft, some kind of ultralight. We never did pick it up on scan, just saw it landing in the courtyard here where Lieutenant Roehl is billeted. Before anyone could react, it was into her quarters, you know how fast they are, sir.

  “Private Singh managed to disable its aircraft on the ground, I don’t think it expected anyone but indigs here. But now it’s got two indig hostages. It’s threatening to kill them if we don’t let it go.” Kirrah’s face had gone pale as a sheet.

  Marcus asked, “Go where, Corporal? Its transport is fried, right?”

  “Yessir. I don’t know where it plans to go, but wherever it is, it’s going to be walking there.”

  “Which two! Which two people has it got?” Kirrah almost climbed Marcus’ suit front to speak into his suit microphone.

  Corporal Sengli heard her. “Who’s… oh, Lieutenant Roehl! Just a minute, I’ll ask someone. What do you want me to do, sir?”

  “You got a shot at it?”

  “Well, yessir. But it’s wearing something, can’t tell if it’s combat armor or survival suit, but whatever it is, chances are good the hostages will be injured from the back-splash. It’s standing right between them, got them chained to it somehow. Wait one, here’s that teacher, Slaetra… who’s - yes, thank you ma’am. Uh, she says to tell you the names of the hostages are Tashta and Akaray. One’s a girl, other’s just a little kid.

  “Need a decision now, sir, it’s already killed one of the indig guards, and fired on me, and it’s demanding immediate exit from the building or it will kill one of the hostages.”