by Timothy Zahn
The rest of the time was spent practicing the computer drills they'd learned back on Carrion. They would continue practicing, Basht declared several times, until they were able to run them in their sleep.
Jack wasn't sure they ever got that good at it. But he had to admit that Basht pushed them at least halfway there. By the time they reached Sunright, the whole squad was dreaming about the drills.
Finally, yet all too soon, they had arrived.
The town of Mer'seb was nestled into a narrow river valley, its tightly packed buildings surrounded by tall, thickly forested hills. A slow river wound lazily through the center of town from the east, taking a sharp southern turn a half mile or so beyond the western edges.
Between the town and the river curve was a large area of mostly flat stone. It was on this natural landing pad that the Whinyard's Edge spaceship set down.
The adult Edgemen had obviously been through this routine before. They lined up at the airlock hatchway in full combat gear, rifles and machine guns slung for marching.
When the hatch opened, they strode out and down the ramp, forming quickly into six-man ranks. Marching in step, they headed into the city along a typically Parprin straight-as-an-arrow street. At Grisko's direction, the three teenage squads fell in at the back end of the column.
"Well, this is fun," Jommy muttered under his breath from beside Jack as they marched past the first row of houses at the edge of town. "They planning to walk us the whole way to the outpost?"
"Probably just to the main Edge HQ," Alison said from Jommy's other side. "It's on the far side of town."
"How do you know where it is?" Jommy asked suspiciously.
"I saw the flag from the top of the ramp," she said mildly. "You really need to pay more attention to details, Randolph."
Jommy muttered something inaudible under his breath. "Oh, come on," she chided him. "Frost up, okay? It can't be more than a mile or two."
"Yeah, but what's the point?" he growled.
"They're probably showing us off," Alison said. "Look at the people."
Keeping his face forward as he'd been taught, Jack threw a sideways glance at the Parprins lining the street. Quite a few of them had come out to see the parade, all right. Mostly females and their children, though there were also a few of the taller males mixed in.
He frowned, taking a second look. The thin Parprin face always seemed sad to him; but these Parprins looked even sadder than usual. The children huddled close by their mothers, and the males tended to stand in groups of two or three, talking softly together. "They don't look very happy to see us," he pointed out quietly.
"Maybe they don't know we're here to help them," Jommy muttered sarcastically.
"Or maybe they think this whole thing has gotten out of hand," Alison suggested slowly. "Maybe they don't think their mine is worth all this."
"Isn't worth what?" Jommy scoffed. "Defending from poachers?"
"Not worth completely scrambling their lives for," Alison countered. "My father used to say that lawyers and soldiers came out of the same expensive box. If you couldn't settle things without them, you weren't going to like what it cost to settle things with them."
Jommy grunted. "Your dad must have been a real kick to grow up with."
Alison didn't answer.
They continued on in silence. Jack kept his eyes moving, wishing he knew how to read Parprin faces better. Maybe he was only imagining their discomfort.
Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that they looked like people watching an occupying army march through their town.
They reached an area of three- and four-story buildings, obviously the town's main business district. Here the females and their children were replaced by Parprin males, many of them wearing the brightly colored robes of shopkeepers or the only slightly drabber sparkle-cloth of businessmen. There were also quite a few aliens of different species represented in the crowd, and even an occasional human. Apparently, Mer'seb was a trading center for many of the alien enclaves and colonies scattered around this region of the planet.
Again, it seemed to Jack that a lot of the Parprins were whispering together as the mercenaries marched past. The rest stood in silence, watching the procession. The other aliens, in contrast, mostly glanced at the spectacle and then moved on. No one cheered or waved.
"I got it," Jommy said suddenly. "They just don't realize it's a parade, that's all. We should have brought a brass band with us."
"That's funny," Alison said scornfully. "Personally, I was just thinking about how much I was enjoying the silence."
And at that instant, almost as if on cue, the silence of the crowd was abruptly broken. From all around them, the city erupted in noise: the distant thunder of small rockets, the closer rattle of machine gun fire, the shouts and screams of the injured and the dying and the terrified.
The Whinyard's Edge was under attack.
CHAPTER 11
The chatter of gunshots filled the air. The deeper, slower rhythm of heavier weaponry and small explosions added counterpoint, the noise echoing from the sides of the buildings. The entire column of soldiers was under attack.
And like the raw recruit that he was, Jack just stood there in the middle of it.
"Move!" Draycos snarled, his whole body aching for action. An attack. Soldiers being shot at and probably killed where they stood. Civilians possibly caught in the line of fire, with nowhere to escape to.
And he, a poet-warrior of the K'da, lying uselessly in two-dimensional form against Jack's skin.
It was a horrible situation. A horrible, shameful situation. For a K'da warrior in the midst of combat to sit idly by, not lifting a claw to help, was a violation of all he'd ever stood for.
But he had no choice. To move now, to give in to the urge to defend and protect, would doom the K'da and Shontine to ultimate destruction.
Because if the unknown enemies who had slaughtered his advance party ever learned that someone had survived, they would hunt him down like a newborn cub. And when he died, the last chance to warn the refugee fleet would be gone.
But even as his frustration rose like poison in his throat, Jack finally freed himself from his stunned paralysis. "What do I do?" he hissed, breaking into a run toward the edge of the street.
"Find cover," Draycos told him. Sliding along Jack's body, he got a claw beneath the collar of the boy's shirt and popped open the sealing seam. Bad enough being trapped here unable to help, without being mostly blind, too. He ran the claw down far enough to open the shirt to midchest and peered out.
It was about as bad a place to be caught in an ambush as he could have asked for. All around them, medium-tall buildings provided high ground for the attackers, and they were taking full advantage of it. A cloud of drifting smoke was starting to collect overhead by the rooftops, and he could see muzzle flashes from several windows. Most of the attack seemed to be coming from three buildings: the three-story structure next to the building Jack was heading toward, plus the two four-story ones across the street from it.
He could also see now that the city was surrounded by forested hills. More high ground, probably the source of the deeper and more distant sounds of heavy weapons. The enemy had planned their attack well.
There was a jarring thud as Jack reached the building and slammed hard into the wall beside a large decorative planter with a red-blue bush sprouting out of it. "I don't think I like this," the boy muttered in a shaky voice as he fumbled his Gompers flash rifle off his shoulder and dropped into a squat beside the planter. "How in—?"
He broke off as an angry face suddenly filled Draycos's field of view.
The K'da froze in place. But the Whinyard's Edge mercenary wasn't interested in dragon tattoos just then. "Gimme that," he barked, snatching the rifle from Jack's grip. Holding it across his chest, he took off to the left.
"Oh, that's terrific," Jack muttered, curling into a tight ball behind the planter. "Now what?"
Draycos raised his head from Jack's skin far
enough to press an eye through the open gap in his shirt, and caught a glimpse of the mercenary as he disappeared around the corner of the building. The man's own machine gun, he noted, was still bouncing against his back. "He wanted a long-range weapon to use against the hillside attackers," he decided. "His own weapon is for closer work."
"Right," Jack groused, curling up a little tighter. "Like there isn't enough to shoot at here."
He had a point. Gunfire was pouring down from the three buildings Draycos had already identified as being held by the enemy. The Edgemen were returning fire, but they were pinned down and mostly without cover. Even as he watched, three of them tried to charge the door of one of the buildings, only to be scattered back by a peppering of small explosions.
Fortunately, most of the civilians seemed to have vanished. Some had ducked into walkways and alleys or else had taken refuge inside buildings not held by the enemy. Those outside the immediate battle zone were running in all directions, their brightly colored outfits bouncing like flowers in a stiff wind.
And then, as Draycos looked over the top of the planter, his eyes caught a horrible sight. Three Parprins, one tall and two very short, were huddled together in obvious terror against the side of Jack's building. A mother and her cubs, trapped in the middle of the firefight. "There," he said urgently. "Civilians."
"What?" Jack asked, not moving a muscle.
"Civilians," Draycos repeated, lifting a claw through the open shirt and pointing.
Reluctantly, Jack untucked his head far enough to throw a quick glance over the planter. "Okay, yeah, I see them."
"Stop merely seeing and give them aid," Draycos snapped. "Get them to cover."
"What? Look, Draycos—"
"Do not argue!" Draycos cut him off.
Small objects were starting to rain down from the enemy buildings' rooftops now, objects that exploded on impact. Popcorn bombs, he remembered them being called in Jack's mercenary manual, thrown by something called a popcorn machine. The three Parprins huddled even tighter together in response, the mother wrapping her arms protectively around her cubs. "You are a soldier," Draycos said. "The job of a soldier is to protect those in danger. Now, protect them."
"How?" Jack demanded, sounding scared and miserable. "I can't even protect myself. What do you want me to do?"
Draycos leaned out from Jack's shirt as far as he dared. On the far side of the planter, between Jack and the Parprins, was a set of steps leading upward into an alcove. He couldn't be certain at his angle, but it looked like the alcove led up into a doorway. "That opening to your right," he told Jack. "Move them in there. It may be a doorway that will allow you into the building. If it is not, it will at least provide cover from the popcorn bombs."
Jack shook his head. "I can't," he said. "It's too far."
A shot slammed into the far side of the planter, nearly toppling it over onto Jack. The boy jerked, then curled even more tightly around himself. "Listen to me," Draycos said, keeping his voice quiet and steady. "The enemy is not trying to shoot civilians. If they were, those three would already be dead. We may assume they will therefore not deliberately shoot at you if you are merely trying to help them."
Jack shivered. "But if no one's shooting at them, why should I do anything?"
"Because a random shot may still find them if they stay where they are," Draycos said. "And because it is your duty."
Beneath him, he felt Jack's muscles tense. "All right," the boy said, taking a deep breath. He hunched his shoulders, taking another careful look over the top of the planter.
And then, so suddenly it startled even Draycos, he was on his feet, running a zigzag path toward the Parprins.
Draycos had just enough time to flatten himself onto Jack's skin before they were there. "Come on," Jack urged, tugging at the mother's arm. "Come on. We've got to get inside."
For a second the Parprin female just stared blankly up at him. Jack tugged at her arm again, pointing toward the stairs and the alcove.
Then, just as suddenly as Jack had made his decision, the mother made hers. Scrambling upright, she grabbed her cubs' hands and raced toward the alcove.
Jack stayed right behind them until they reached the steps. Then, bounding up past them as they climbed, he pushed the door open and hurried them inside.
The room they found themselves in took up the entire front of the building. Small round tables were laid out in what seemed to be a random pattern, with tiny colored disks neatly arranged on them. The windows were large, facing onto the street and also to both sides. None of them had curtains or barriers of any sort.
Near the center of the room was a wide staircase leading up to the second floor, with a set of curved metal railings on both sides. "Make them sit beside the staircase," Draycos whispered to Jack. "It will give some protection from fire through the windows."
"I should be out there," Jack muttered as he herded the Parprins to the side of the stairway. "I should be out helping them."
"You cannot," Draycos told him firmly. "You have no weapon. You can only stay here and guard the civilians."
"But those are supposed to be my comrades out there," Jack insisted. "You're the one who's always talking about duty. How can I just sit here while they're getting shot at?"
"You cannot help them," Draycos repeated, flicking his tongue out once through the gap in Jack's shirt. The smell of Parprin wasn't one he had tasted before, and he made a mental note of its texture. "But I can. And I will."
Jack exhaled in a huff. "Okay," he said. "Be careful." He helped the Parprins down with their backs against the stairway wall; and as he did so, he lifted his left hand over the top of the railing.
Draycos was out of the sleeve in an instant, leaping onto the stairs. With his scales tingling, his battle senses fully alert, he headed up.
CHAPTER 12
The second floor was much like the first: wide spaces, tables with merchandise, no cover near the windows. Draycos didn't pause, but continued up the next stairway to the third floor.
There he found what he was looking for. This floor, instead of being devoted to merchandise, had been divided by low partitions into an orderly maze of small office-like areas. Even better, the windows were partially covered by thick, decorative drapes. Keeping to the cover of the partitions, he made his way to one of the side windows and looked cautiously out.
The side of the next building was perhaps ten feet away, an easy leap for a K'da warrior. He scanned all the windows, but there was no one in sight. Apparently, the attackers were concentrating on the street side, where the Edgemen were pinned down.
Still, they hadn't completely neglected their defense of this side. Between the two buildings a steady trickle of popcorn bombs was raining down.
It was an interesting defensive method, one which the K'da and Shontine had never used. The popcorn bombs were propelled outward from a central launcher somewhere on top of the building. As each bomb cleared the edge of the roof, it sprouted a small parachute, which stopped its outward motion and turned it instead to fall straight down. The parachute then popped off, sending the bomb falling at normal speed toward the street below.
For a few seconds Draycos watched the bombs, studying their pattern. With the proper timing, it should be cub's play to get though it.
The rooftop was a little ways above his position as he looked out the window, and he couldn't see if there was anyone up there tending the popcorn machine. Still, the Edge manual had said such devices ran automatically, so it had probably been left on its own. He would have to risk it.
He looked down, and felt his jaws crack open in a tight smile. Whatever else the popcorn bombs were supposed to do, they were also having an unintended but useful side effect. Just as the gunfire from the windows was creating a hazy smoke screen around the tops of the buildings, so too the bombs were creating a smoky mist of their own at ground level.
Which meant that, when he made his move, neither the attackers nor the defenders would see a thing.
The K'da warrior was ready.
Across the room, the pattern of falling bombs reached the proper point. Digging his claws into the carpet, he charged.
A quick sprint took him back to the window. He jumped up to the sill with his front paws, got his rear paws planted on the sill behind them, and leaped up and outward.
There was no time to wonder what would happen if he had made a mistake in the pattern. Fortunately, he hadn't. His jump took him sailing cleanly through a gap in the artificial hailstorm and landed him on top of the low parapet around the edge of the roof.
The popcorn machine had been set up near the center of the roof, spitting its deadly dispatches toward and over the edges. As Draycos had expected, there was no one tending it. Staying low beneath the stream of bombs, he sprinted across the roof.
This particular machine was slightly different from the one that had been shown in Jack's manual. But it was similar enough. Two quick slashes through the power and control cables, and the rain of bombs stopped.
Beside the machine was a trap door leading down into the building. Prying open the popcorn machine's magazine, he pulled out two of the small bombs. Then, ready to toss them in if necessary, he pulled the trap door open a crack.
He flicked his tongue into the gap. There was an alien tang in the air, almost buried beneath the taste of the explosive powder of the guns. The taste of Parprin was there, too, but faint and stale, plus the stronger scent of a human. Neither the human nor alien scents seemed to be nearby.
He lifted the trap door the rest of the way up. Below was a narrow stairway leading down to a door that had been propped open. No one was visible, and the enemy did not seem to have set any alarms or booby traps. Tucking his two popcorn bombs out of the way beneath his forearms, he headed down.