Return To Kaldak rb-36

by Джеффри Лорд

  Blade hit the ground in time to escape. So did the two closest men. The corporal was caught by surprise and also by flying fragments. She grunted and sat down, then doubled up, kicking frantically. After a minute, blood trickled from her mouth and she lay still. Blade crawled to where the other survivors could hear him and whispered.

  «We’ve got to go forward. If we pull back, we’ll be on open ground and that thing’ll laser us down. If we go forward, we’ll be under cover.»

  «But the village must be alerted by now. They’ll send out a patrol, and we won’t have a chance.»

  «Not a good one,» Blade admitted. «But better than if we try to outrun a laser beam.»

  The others couldn’t deny an obvious truth, even when they heard it stated by a new recruit. It was one of those situations where the first man to make sense inherits the leadership.

  The three soldiers crept through underbrush which quickly turned into heavy second-growth forest. They couldn’t move through it as quietly as Blade would have liked, but he also knew they would be completely invisible even if somebody did hear them. Maybe they could go to ground here after all? Short of burning down the whole forest, the Tribesmen would only find them by luck. The rest of the company should catch up before that happened.

  Before long they saw light through the trees. Finally they thinned out, and Blade crept forward for a closer look at the source of the light. Half a dozen Doimari were bustling around a stack of plastic boxes and wooden crates. Four were hauling them into a large earth and stone shelter, while two mounted guard. Beside the first shelter stood a second. On the roof was a large fish antenna and several radio aerials. Half a dozen timber-and-thatch Tribal huts were scattered around the other side of the clearing. Blade could make out the main village about a quarter of a mile farther down a winding path. Beside the pile of gear stood a lamp on a pole, shrouded so that it was almost invisible from above.

  Blade’s companions crawled up to join him. «We’re in luck,» he said. «We’ve stumbled on the ammo dump, they’re not alert, and the village is a bit of a way off. If we hit them hard enough we can get the dump and a couple of prisoners before they wake up.»

  One man’s eyes widened. «You’re crazy! They couldn’t have missed the shooting back there.»

  «No. But if the pilot didn’t pass the word, they may not know what it was. They may think he was jumping at shadows.»

  «They still outnumber us-«began the other man, but the first private put a large hand on his shoulder.

  «Shut up, Grudi, or you’re gonna be the first casualty. I guess Voros is right. We got a better chance if we get ‘em running around and falling over each other.»

  Blade grinned at his new ally. Private Ezarn was a huge ex-farmer, who took three men to handle him when he got drunk on payday. When he was sober in combat, he was worth half a platoon.

  With only three men and no time to spare, Blade’s tactics weren’t fancy. He lasered out the light and, as darkness swallowed the clearing, threw four grenades as fast as he could pull the pins. The explosions started a fire in the pile of supplies, which lit up the clearing all over again. They also disabled most of the Doimari. Only two were on their feet when Blade and his comrades darted out into the clearing.

  Ezarn and Grudi swung left. They were supposed to grenade the ammo dump before anyone inside could get the door shut. Blade shot one of the surviving Doimari, then swung right, heading for the huts and the path which led to the main village. He wanted to discourage the other Tribesmen from joining the fight for just a few minutes.

  As he ran, he kept an eye out for the last of the Doimari. At last he saw the man darting from shadow to shadow, toward the shelter with the electronic array on the roof. Blade fired on the run, missed, and stopped for a better shot. This let the man make a flying leap through the shelter door and close it behind him. Blade swore. The man was probably going to either radio for help or blow up electronic equipment which Kaldakan Intelligence would be glad to have. He carefully aimed at the base of the dish antenna and fired, hoping to disable it.

  He succeeded more thoroughly than he’d hoped. An electrical explosion flared blue-white, and pieces of half-melted metal showered down all over the clearing. Some landed in the dry thatch of the huts, which boomed into flames at once. Blade heard a woman scream from inside one hut. He headed for the cover of a tree on the far side of the clearing. It would let him cover the trail without being seen by the people who would certainly be swarming out of the huts in a minute.

  Blade didn’t move fast enough. A hut door flew open, and a young man dashed out. «You idiot!» he screamed at Blade. «Your fools with their fire weapons-«He broke off to look at one of the burning huts, turned pale, and screamed, «Klana!» Then he took a closer look at Blade, turned even paler, and drew his sword.

  Blade slammed the butt of his rifle across the man’s wrist. He howled, dropping the sword, but looked ready to leap on Blade with bare hands. His ears were twice normal size, pointed and hairy. «Get your wife and the others out of here!» Blade roared. «This isn’t your fight. I won’t hurt any of you unless I have to.» He raised his rifle.

  The young man gaped at Blade for a moment, his ears twitching, apparently wondering who was crazy here. Then he decided that he had nothing to lose and dashed into the nearest of the burning huts. He led out several people, one of them a woman even younger than himself with a baby at her breast. All the people had the same pointed, hairy ears, and they were coughing and rubbing their eyes. The baby was squalling loudly. The young man pointed off down the trail, and the people ran without a second warning or a backward glance.

  The man stayed behind until the last of the people from the huts were gone. «I am Ikhnon, Chief of the Red Cots,» he said to Blade, but then a laser beam from across the clearing nearly parted his hair. A second would have hit him, but just then the ammunition dump exploded with a deafening roar. The blast knocked Blade and the Tribesman chief flat and completely ruined the rifleman’s aim. Twigs and birds’ nests rained out of the tree; the young chief jumped up and ran. He was out of sight before the last rumble of the explosion died.

  Blade turned to see Ezarn staggering toward him. He was half carrying Grudi in one hand and a heavy Doimari laser with a sack of power cells in the other. He was as black as a coal miner, but his teeth-flashed white in a cheerful grin.

  «Lots of stuff in there I hadn’t seen before, but I couldn’t figure how to use it. So I took a piece I knew. Figure we might have to do a little more fighting. That fellow you ran off, he’ll be back with his friends.»

  «Maybe,» said Blade. He looked down the trail, hoping to see signs the village was being evacuated. If the people got enough of a head start, the Kaldakans probably wouldn’t bother chasing them. They’d have to abandon their livestock and everything else they couldn’t snatch up in a hurry, but-The Doimari lifter came whining in over the clearing. Blade and Ezarn dove for the nearest cover. Laser fire crackled wildly across the clearing, doing nothing except setting another hut on fire. Then the lifter settled down in the middle of the clearing. A hatch on top opened, and a man holding a laser rifle stuck his head out.

  Before he could scan the clearing, Blade fired. The man slumped down, half out of the hatch. Blade and Ezarn dashed across the clearing, avoided the still-turning propellers of the lifter, and scrambled up on top of it. As they did, the door of the electronics shelter opened. A cloud of green smoke poured out, and so did several Doimari.

  Blade and Ezarn flung themselves down among the Doimari. Blade was an expert at most forms of unarmed combat, and Ezarn was large and tough. In less than a minute all but one of the enemy sprawled unconscious on the ground. Ezarn shot the last one as he ran toward the village, while Blade cut his way through the locked side hatch of the lifter with his laser.

  Inside he found the pilot struggling with the controls, trying to lift off but so panic-stricken he’d forgotten which buttons to push. The lifter was just beginning to lift when Blade
clubbed him across the back of the skull with a rifle butt. He dropped back into his seat, and the lifter dropped back to the ground.

  A moment later both Blade and Ezarn had to run for their lives as the Kaldakan sky-tug swooped in with its lasers blazing away. They barely got the unconscious Doimari under cover before the captured lifter blew up. Blade swore again.

  The explosions woke up one of the Doimari. He looked at the flaming shambles around him and laughed hysterically. «You think you’ve won tonight, Kaldakan. You think you’ve won. But rest assured: we’ll have our vengeance. Your city will look like this. Your own precious foolish Kaldak with no Sky Master to save youuuu-unh!» as Exarn knocked him unconscious again.

  Blade and Ezarn looked at each other. «Wonder what he meant by that?» said the big man, rubbing his knuckles. «They maybe got some new kind of Fighting Machine?»

  «I think he must have been hysterical,» said Blade, sounding calmer than he felt. He remembered that crater with the metal shards and the electronic antennae on the hut. But if the Doimari were testing a secret weapon, why would they put their test station way out here in the Tribal lands, so far from their city and so vulnerable to enemy attack?

  Blade was still trying to puzzle out the mystery when the rest of the paratroop company started to arrive, guided by the flames and the indignant radio messages from the sky-tug. It didn’t help the commander’s temper to discover that while he was trying to find his objective, the newest recruit in the company had won the battle almost singlehandedly.

  Chapter 10

  If it had been up to the company commander, Blade probably wouldn’t have received credit for his heroism. Grudi had been unconscious for most of the fight, and Ezarn had a bad reputation as a brawler and a drunk. They were the only Kaldakan witnesses.

  Unfortunately for the commander, Ezarn had a much better reputation among his fellow soldiers than he did among the officers. They knew that when he called a new recruit «One-Man Army Voros,» he should be listened to. So they listened, and in a day Blade’s story was all over the company.

  The Intelligence officers also heaped praise on Blade. Thanks to his quick work, they had several Doimari prisoners and a good description of the antennae. They were grateful and said so where higher-ranking officers than the company commander heard it.

  Blade privately wished both Ezarn and the Intelligence officers would drop dead. He realized now that he’d reacted to stumbling on the Doimari as he usually did. He’d attacked, and so successfully that he’d made himself conspicuous again-the last thing he wanted to do in this Dimension!

  Being an efficient and deadly fighting machine, it seemed, was a hard habit to break.

  With the immediate area cleared of both Doimari and Tribesmen, a balloon train could land safely. It brought another company of the Fourth Battalion, with mortars and fresh ammunition. It took out the casualties, the Doimari prisoners, and the Intelligence officers. None of the prisoners would voluntarily answer a single question, so they were on their way to Kaldak and a session with the truthseers.

  The two companies moved toward their assigned position, leaving the mysterious crater behind before Blade could visit it in daylight. From conversations he overheard, there were other craters, but how many, how big, and where he couldn’t tell. He didn’t dare ask, either-that kind of curiosity was something sure to be noticed. He roundly cursed the fates again, for putting him in a situation where he had to spend so much time protecting his own secrets that he couldn’t learn any of the secrets of this Dimension!

  At least this was a Dimension he’d visited before, so it didn’t have that many secrets. Also, the Kaldakans seemed able to take care of their enemies without needing his help. He wouldn’t be hurting anything important by lurking as Private Voros until the time came for him to return Home.

  As the two companies marched, scouts reported that the Tribesmen were abandoning their villages and scattering into the hills and forests. Sometimes the scouts or a sky-tug would burn a few houses in one of the abandoned villages, to keep the Tribesmen moving. Otherwise the two sides were leaving each other pretty much alone.

  Blade wondered if both sides were saving their strength for a big fight? Or were the Tribesmen expecting that the Doimari would come to their rescue, or at least avenge them with the secret weapon-if there was one?

  At last the two companies made contact with the main Kaldakan force. More Tribesmen had escaped than anyone liked, but some five hundred warriors were now trapped between the two Kaldakan forces. They had most of the livestock of several villages with them, so they could be a good prize. The Kaldakans got ready to round up the herds and their herdsmen.

  Blade’s luck was going to hold in at least one thing. The enemy were all warriors. He still wouldn’t have to shoot women and children.

  «Open fire!»

  Six stubby-barreled mortars went off in one long rolling crash. Six ten-pound shells went soaring over the top of the ridge to the west. A minute later the distant sound of explosions echoed from the valley. A signal lamp winked from a tree on the ridge line.

  «Over and to the right,» shouted the mortar commander. The mortar crews bent to make the adjustments, while the loaders stood ready with the next rounds.

  Blade watched the activity with the eye of a professionally trained spectator. His platoon was assigned as security for the mortars. The nearest Tribesman was a good mile away, on the far side of the ridge and likely to stay there alive or dead. As the Fighting Machines advanced up the valley, they were supposed to drive the Tribesmen into the mortar fire.

  It wasn’t a bad plan, Blade knew. If it worked half as well as it was supposed to, the Tribesmen were finished, and no battle plan ever worked better than that. Now if the Tribesmen just did what they were supposed to. .

  The mortars crashed again; the echoes rolled up from beyond the ridge again. So did a growing cloud of smoke. The Kaldakan mortar shells weren’t the best Blade had ever seen, but any weapon is good enough if it hits you.

  Then a crash of a very different kind sounded, from behind Blade. Forty soldiers whirled around like puppets jerked by their strings. Something trailing bluish smoke hissed overhead. The smoke trail ended at the base of the observer’s tree. Black smoke and flying branches rose in an ugly mushroom.

  Another rocket went over, bursting close beside the first. Blade saw a glimmer of green laser-light just below the rocket. So the Doimari had developed laser guidance systems for their rockets? And infiltrated a launcher team into the rear of the Kaldakans? They deserved credit for both their technology and their tactics.

  Then Blade had to abandon his professional detachment. The platoon commander shouted, «Forward! Get those bastards!» then died with her mouth open as a third rocket hit the piled mortar ammunition. Fragments and whole shells flew in all directions, and one of them tore into the commander’s chest. Another soldier had his head ripped off. His blood sprayed over Blade as he started to move out.

  The attack got only a few steps before several lasers opened up, along with something like a grenade launcher. At least grenades which couldn’t have been launched by hand were suddenly bursting among the Kaldakans.

  That stopped the attack almost before it began. The platoon went to cover in the long dry grass of the meadow, moving only when grenade or laser-set fires burned too close. Some of the wounded couldn’t move in time. Blade heard their desperate pleas for help, then their screams as they burned alive.

  Blade ruthlessly closed his ears to the screams and watched the smoke from the fires thicken. Before long it would be thick enough to hide a moving man. Off to the left was a little ravine, running toward the enemy-held hill. Under cover of that ravine, a squad might get to within killing distance of the rocket launcher.

  Blade looked at the men nearest him. Some were too stunned to move, others too badly wounded. He gritted his teeth. It looked as if he might have to do the work of a whole squad himself. He collected some extra grenades from two corpses and
started crawling toward the ravine. At least this time he wouldn’t have any witnesses to his work.

  Halfway to the ravine the smoke started thinning.

  Blade knew he’d be visible and vulnerable in another minute and gambled on speed. He leaped up and dashed for the bank of the ravine. As he reached it, the earth crumbled under his feet and dropped him ten feet to the shallow bed of a rocky stream.

  Blade knew how to fall, so he wasn’t hurt. Neither were his grenades. His laser rifle, however, was bent like a banana. Trying to fire it only produced a pathetic fizzing noise. Blade was annoyed with himself for being in such a hurry that he hadn’t grabbed a spare rifle. Now he’d have to attack with grenades only, then pick up a rifle off a Doimari corpse. This would turn an already dangerous job into a real suicide party. However, the other choices were even worse. He could sit here until the Kaldakans won, when he would probably be court-martialed as a coward and possibly go under the truthseer, or until the Doimari won, when they would kill or capture him.

  At least he could be an anonymous hero this time. He rose to his feet, then jumped back as a large body hurtled down the side of the ravine. It trailed a cloud of dust and gravel, so Blade didn’t recognize the man at once. Then the new arrival held out a laser rifle.

  «Here, Voros. I brought two.»

  It was Ezarn. «What are you doing here?» snapped Blade.

  «Coming with you,» said Ezarn.

  «You’re crazy!»

  «Not crazy like I’d be to lie there, let ‘em chew me up. Or crazy like you going up there without no rifle.» He dropped a fresh power cell into his own rifle. «Besides, you’re lucky. Some of it’ll rub off on me.»