Battlecry: Sten: Omnibus One (Sten Omnibus)

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  ‘Still,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t notified. No work done ’less I’m notified.’

  Sten shrugged. He and Alex climbed back into the gravsled. Sten keyed a report on the tiny onboard computer, then printed it and handed the hard copy to the guard. ‘Sign it.’

  The guard stared at it, his eyes widening.

  ‘This says I refused you entrance. You’re blaming me ’cause you can’t fix the welder.’

  ‘Gotta blame somebody,’ Sten said. ‘Might as well be you. Look. Be a nice guy. Sign it. We leave. And then it’s party time tonight.’

  The guard handed the report back, shaking his head. ‘Go do your work.’

  ‘Ah, come on,’ Sten said. ‘Give us a clottin’ break. I wanna go home.’

  But the guard was firm. He pointed at the building. ‘Fix it.’

  Reluctantly Sten and Alex climbed back out of their gravsled, loaded up their tools, and, with a few ‘clots’ thrown over their shoulder, began the weary climb to the fifteenth floor.

  Ida and Doc piled over the turret top, into the track. On the ground beside it, the Companion lieutenant was moaning into unconsciousness. After the two had done a quick fiddle with one of the Mantis Section’s Hotwire Anything Kits, they’d crept back into the track park. It was unfortunate – for the lieutenant – that he’d come around the wrong corner at the wrong time. Ida’d forearmed him in the gut and Doc had tranked the man, but not before nearly biting through his leg.

  Ida fumbled the box out of her purse, looking at the controls.

  ‘Over there,’ Doc said, pointing at the SP cannon’s security/ignition case. Within seconds Ida had the box epoxied on the case, and the box had analyzed and broken the three-sequence number code that brought the track to life.

  As Ida fired the engine up, she settled into the gunner/driver’s seat then pushed the track controls forward and hunched a little.

  ‘Hang on, Doc. This is gonna be a clottin’ great ride.’

  The SP cannon’s tracks raised great gouts of spray, and then, as Ida yanked one control stick all the way back, the track spun in its own length and churned out of the park toward the armory.

  Alex allowed himself one genteel Edinburghian wheeze as he and Sten dumped their duffle bags on the wooden planking covering the Theodomir building’s fifteenth story.

  Sten fished through one bag and took out a grapnel gun. He fitted the spool line to the grapnel’s shaft while Alex neatly coiled cable from the second duffle bag.

  Then Sten took careful aim at the prison’s roof below through the gun’s vee-sights. He fired and with a whoosh the grapnel drifted toward its target, spooling out light silver line.

  Bet signaled the tigers. Hugin and Munin flashed forward out of the alley mouth, bounding in rippling shadows toward the gate of the armory. A few meters from it, they split and darted unnoticed to either side of the gate. They slipped into shadows and became invisible, the only movement an occasional flash of a whipping tail.

  Bet patted Otho on his hulking shoulder. She walked out from the alleyway and began ankling toward the steel guardshack.

  She was wearing her most prim-but-revealing peasant costume. A summer dress that hugged her body but allowed her long limbs to flash out freely. She acted unsure, vulnerable, little-girl-lost. Without hestitation she walked straight toward the guardshack.

  A young, handsome Companion stepped out. ‘May I help you, sister?’

  She opened her eyes as wide as they could go. ‘Oh, yes, sir. I’m hoping you could. I’ve never been to the Holy City before, and … and …’

  ‘You’re lost?’

  Bet gulped and gave a shy nod.

  ‘We were all with the village priest,’ she gushed, all over-explanation ‘The Talamein youth group – and one of the boys got, well, you know … too friendly, and – and …’ Bet stopped doing the galaxy’s best blush.

  ‘You left the group.’ The guard was all understanding, and protective.

  Bet nodded.

  ‘And now you need to know how to get to the hostel?’

  Bet nodded again.

  The guard pointed down the street. ‘Just down there, sister. A few hundred meters.’

  Bet gulped her thanks and began, with an innocent wiggle, to head for the hostel.

  ‘I’ll stand right here,’ the young Companion shouted after her, ‘and make sure you’re all right.’

  Bet waved her thanks and moved on, tentatively, slowly. Tripping over little potholes – all Princess and the Pea. She heard gates clang open behind her and then the sound of bootsteps. The changing of the guard was right on time.

  She nodded at the mouth of the alley. A moment later Otho staggered out, a shambling, stumbling drunken Bhor. He bleared at Bet, gave a huge smile, belched, and trundled forward. ‘By my mother’s beard,’ he shouted. ‘Here’s a find.’

  Bet shrieked, tried to run, and caught a heel in the cobblestones. She fell heavily. An instant later Otho was falling on her. Laughing and gathering her up in his huge and hairy arms. The theory was that no one dumb enough to be a Companion would be bright enough to realize that, to a Bhor, breeding with a human was only slightly less revolting and impossible than with a streggan.

  Otho pretended not to hear the shouts from the onrushing Companion and the other guards.

  ‘Just my luck,’ he chortled at Bet. ‘Now, don’t be afraid, little lady. Otho is going to—’

  He grunted in pain as the Companion slammed into him. He twisted off Bet, wrapped a mighty arm around the Companion and there was a sharp crack as the man’s back broke.

  Just behind him, a second Companion gaped in surprise. Bet shot him and he dropped without a sound.

  Shouts. Clanking. Sounds of confusion. Bet looked up to see the guards gaping. There were about twenty men pointing and yelling. Weapons were coming up.

  Bet put two fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly. The entire street seemed to rumble as the tigers roared and bounded out of their hiding spots, straight into the guards.

  Guts trailing, three men went under before the rest knew what was happening. Hugin and Munin bounded among them, ripping, clawing, and tearing. There was immediate panic.

  Guns went off, and bullets ripped into Companions instead of tigers.

  Then, as a melée, the Companions fled back into the guard tunnel, fighting each other to be first.

  It was a long, narrow tunnel with gates at each end. The one on the street side had been opened for the changing of the guards. Security required that the other – the only other exit – be closed.

  Companions on the inside of the armory gaped in horror as their friends charged toward them and beat on the bars helplessly as Hugin and Munin tore into them.

  Panicked men were climbing the portcullis, trying to squeeze through the slots. And being dragged down.

  A guard on the inside violated orders and slapped a button to open the interior gates. As the few Companions still alive spilled through, the guard raised his weapon to fire at the tigers. Before he could shoot, his head exploded.

  Bet and Otho ran yelling and firing into the interior courtyard. The way to the armory was open.

  Sten and then Alex clipped wheeled guides to the slender cable. The monastery was about twenty meters below them and about one hundred meters away.

  Sten tugged experimentally on the wheel’s tee-handles. Then held on tight and, without a word, he lifted his feet and began the long, fast slide down toward the monastery roof. He held his breath as his speed grew with every meter of drooping cable. Behind him he heard a low hum as Alex followed.

  The roof was coming up fast, and Sten got ready for the shock of landing. Just before he hit, he was textbook-perfect limp and ready. As he slammed into the prison roof, he heard alarms begin to howl. He tumbled back to his feet and was scrabbling a grenade from his pack as he heard the loud thunk of Alex’s landing.

  Alex did a shoulder roll, Sten pointed, and they sprinted across the roof.

  One roof guard got a shot
off at them, and Alex cut him in half with a burst from his willygun. They paused about thirty meters from the roof’s inside edge. Sten quickly checked for the proper vent, making a mark on his mental map.

  ‘This one,’ he yelled, simultaneously spinning the timer wheel on the grenade’s primer to seven seconds. Alex had three more grenades out of his pack and ready. They dropped the cluster down the shaft and double-timed away.

  Four, five, six, and the grenades exploded. The blast sent Alex and Sten sprawling, their ears thundering. Smoke billowed as they ran back to the hole in the roof.

  Alex dug a can of climbing thread from his small backpack, anchored one end on the roof, and, holding the can, ‘sprayed’ himself down into the prison.

  Sten snapped a special figure-8 descender on the thread – it would have cut through any conventional piece of abseiling gear – and followed. He dropped the last few meters clear, landing beside the heavy-worlder. Then Sten was up and running down a long, stone-walled corridor.

  Through the thick walls they could hear the drumming of booted feet. A door smashed open, a confusion of men rushed out, firing.

  Bullets splattered around them as Sten and Alex opened fire at the same instant. Sten leaped over dead and dying men and sprinted toward the end of the corridor.

  A solid metal door stood between them and Ffillips. Sten slapped a demo pack to the door, thumbed the button, and ducked. There was an explosion and the door dropped in one molten sheet.

  Sten and Alex fired two deadly bursts at a group of Companions behind them and thundered down the corridor toward the main cells.

  The alarms were screaming help … help … help … through the emptying streets.

  Ida and Doc waited for help to come up the Avenue of Tombs, either for the armory or the prison beyond it. Ida had quickly figured out the simple twin-stick controls and Doc had worked out the loading mechanism of the track’s quad cannon.

  They shared a bar of protein and, in the eating of the foul stuff, had agreed to not disagree. Then they heard the rumble of the reinforcements coming. Ida started to fire up the track.

  ‘Wait,’ Doc advised.

  Ida buried an impatient obscenity and waited.

  Then, through the acquisition scope, Ida saw the reinforcements coming. The first to spin into the street were SP tracks identical to the one they rode in. Next came a mass of Companions on foot.

  ‘Now,’ Doc said.

  Ida shoved the track-brakes/throttles forward, and, tracks-clanking, the SP cannon moved out into the middle of the street. Before the others had time to react, she had begun firing.

  The street became a sudden volcano as shell after shell crashed into the oncoming tracks and men.

  Doc was a flurry of unending activity as he loaded the guns almost as quickly as Ida could fire. He did wish, however, that he could take a look through her scope at the gore in the streets.

  Sten shoved the tiny demofinger into the cell door and shielded his eyes. A low glow, then a ping, and the door swung open.

  Ffillips stepped out and gave Sten a long, steady look. ‘You took your time coming, Colonel,’ she said.

  ‘A little close,’ Sten admitted.

  ‘Excellent. Now we’re free. Where are our weapons?’

  Sten grabbed her by the arm and led the way. Behind her thronged the other mercenaries.

  *

  The mercenaries poured out the gates of the prison. The guards might have been able to handle a break by convicts. But not by trained, experienced soldiers who armed themselves as they went, from dead guards.

  Once free, they pounded down the street toward the armory. Just beyond it they could see the blazing track that Doc and Ida were using to hold off the Companions.

  Then they were through the tunnel and inside the armory itself. Bet and Otho had already broken open the arms room and they were passing out weapons, grenades, and belts of ammunition.

  It was like candy.

  Professional soldiers don’t have much use for battlecries but the time spent in Mathias’ dungeons had made the mercs a little less than cold-bloodedly professional. Shouting and cheering, they spread out through the gates of Sanctus, always after their ordered goal, but keeping an eye out for humiliations that had to be repaid:

  The tortured men;

  The beaten men;

  The men who had been condemned for their faithfulness.

  Ffillips was the first to spot a small company of Companions. She motioned to a squad of her men, and quickly, silently they slipped forward.

  And the mercenaries gave the Companions a far easier death than they had planned for the mercenaries.

  It was the same across the city, as the mercs fanned out, killing efficiently and coldly. Hunting out the Companions and swinging their guns aside when civilians stumbled into their sights.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  The Companion lunged at Alex with a bayoneted rifle. Alex sidestepped the lunge, stopped the follow-through buttstroke, and took the weapon from the Companion’s hands.

  Smiling hugely, he took the rifle in both hands and snapped it in two. Then as an afterthought he broke the bayonet off its mounting and politely handed the weapon’s pieces back to the bulging-eyed Companion.

  And then Alex howled and charged.

  The Companion as well as the flanking members of his squad, broke and ran, pelting through the streets of the city. Behind them pounded Alex, some of the mercenaries, and a high-speed-limping Ffillips.

  The street dead-ended into a large marketplace, lined with barred shops. Only one, the largest mart, was still open. The Companions dashed toward its entrance but the owner was hastily dropping thick steel shutters over the shop.

  ‘In the name of Talamein,’ the lead Companion howled.

  ‘Clot Talamein,’ the shopkeeper growled, and slammed the last steel shutter in their faces.

  And the Companions turned as Alex thundered into them. A few of them had the brains to collapse and fake death. But most of them died as Alex’s meathooks thrashed through the platoon.

  There, finally, was only one left. Alex lifted him in one hand, started to practice the javelin throw, and then considered. He lowered the man and turned to Ffillips.

  ‘M’pologies, Major,’ he said. ‘Ah thinkit’s y’r honor.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ Ffillips said. ‘The man is someone I remember. You’ – turning to the Companion – ‘were the person who thought it humorous to fill our water supply with drakh, were you not?’

  Without waiting for a reply, Ffillips fired. The highpower slugs cartwheeled the Companion into a blood-red spray of death, then Alex and Ffillips were headed back down the street, toward the Temple and the fleeing Companions.

  Mathias breathed deeply. Find the Peace of Talamein, he told himself. Find the Truth of the Flame, he reminded, watching as his Companions retreated through the gates of the Temple, far below him.

  This is but a challenge. Talamein will not fail you, he thought as the gates crashed closed and he saw the ragged, limping mercenaries take positions around the walls of the Temple.

  Talamein will prove my truth, he told himself, and turned from the window to soothe his panicked advisors.

  Situation:

  One temple. A walled, reinforced fortress, built on a ridge. Defended by motivated, fairly skilled soldiers. Provisioned for centuries and equipped with built-in wells.

  A civilian populace outside was desperately trying to stay neutral.

  A small band of soldiers, besieging that fortress, armed only with personal weapons and light armor.

  Prog? A classic siege that could go on for decades.

  Without the nukes the Eternal Emperor forbade, it should have been.

  Sten was determined to break the siege and end the war – and Mathias – within a week.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  A given for any port city, and most especially for one on an island continent, is that the watertable will be quite close to the surface. This m
akes building anything over three or four stories an interesting engineering problem, particularly if there’s any seismic activity, as there was on Sanctus.

  Not only was the water level barely fifty meters below ground level (which meant about 350 meters for the Temple itself), but the ground composition was mostly sand. Which, in the event of an earthquake and in the presence of water, goes into suspension and becomes instant quicksand, a flowing, unstable, gluelike substance.

  But tall buildings must still be anchored, which means columns must still be buried deep in the earth. This is, however, not an easy solution since, during an earthquake, these columns will react to the shifting, slurrylike sand and water mix, tilting or collapsing.

  The solution, then, is to use hollow columns. During a quake, the sand/water mix will flow up the interior of the columns and give increased stability. This very basic element of structural engineering was known as far back as the nineteenth century.

  Hollow columns work very well, except that they duct cold air – air that is chilled to the temperature of the water table or outside ocean – straight up the inside of the column to the building above. The hollow columns under the Temple had chilled Sten’s buttocks as he shifted before that first, memorable interview with Parral, Theodomir, and Mathias.

  And those hollow columns, coupled with Mahoney’s geo-survey, gave Sten the way into the Temple.

  A few feet away from where he and Alex stood, sewage gushed from an open pipe, down a gully, and into Sanctus’ ocean. The gully widened past the sewage pipe (fortunately, Sten thought) and then narrowed, to disappear into a cleft in the sandy cliff.

  From his position in Alex’s small backpack, Doc peered down into that cleft. In addition to the Altairian, the pack contained a small light matching the one already on Alex’s shock-helmet, some comporations, and a spare set of gloves. Clipped to his belt Alex also had a minitransponder and a spraycan of climbing thread.

  Sten was similarly equipped. But he also had a vuprojector reproduction of the cave system below the Temple. The system had been mapped by the Imperial geoship, and Sten was fairly sure that it would lead him to one of the hollow columns – and from there straight up into the Temple itself.