Kingdom's Swords

by David Sherman

  Mrs. Lenfen turned to Conorado. "Have you anything to add to this, Captain?"

  "No, ma'am. We are not allowed to tell you more."

  "And what were you to my sister?" Charles asked abruptly, his eyes blazing.

  "We became friends, Charles."

  "Captain Conorado, did you know Jennifer kept a diary? It was among her personal effects." Mrs. Lenfen reached inside her blouse and took out a small leather-bound book, which she offered to Conorado. There were tears in the old woman's eyes. Conorado took the book but could not bring himself to open it. "She was so old-fashioned, you know, a systems engineer who insisted on writing in a paper diary, of all things. She brushed at a tear. "Someone's ripped out the last pages. It ends with her description of your fight with that man..."

  Conorado cleared his throat. "Palmita."

  Mrs. Lenfen nodded. "Yes. Read what she wrote."

  "N-No." He turned the book, unopened, in his hands. He felt embarrassment and a nasty lump in his throat. "I can't open it. I don't want to read it, Mrs. Lenfen." He handed it back.

  "You were her hero," Charles commented cynically. His mother looked at him sharply.

  "Mrs. Lenfen, let me put it to you this way. Jennifer to me was somewhere—somewhere between my wife and my daughter. I'm going back to my wife, Mrs. Lenfen. I always was going back to her, and Jenny knew that. I was—"

  "You were her goddamned knight, that's the way she put it, an old-fashioned hero on a white horse," Charles screamed. He stood suddenly, clenching his fists in anger, and stomped out of the room.

  "Yes, Captain, you were Jenny's ‘knight,’ that's how she thought of you. Please forgive Charles. He was very close to his sister. We'll never get over that she's gone." Mrs. Lenfen paused. "But you military men know death, what it does when someone you care for dies or is killed. We old women know it too. That's a sad lesson young Charles will have to learn." She stood, indicating the interview was over. "Again, gentlemen, thank you very much for coming to see me. You didn't have to, I know. Captain Conorado," she turned to him and held out her hand, "you will always be welcome in my home, and if things had turned out differently, I'd have been proud to have had a son-in-law like you."

  "Whew!" Tuit let out his breath once they were in the elevator. "I didn't have any idea Jenny kept a diary. It could've been embarrassing if we'd tried to bluff the old girl."

  "Hank, she reminded me of Jennifer."

  "Oh." Tuit's face reddened. "Sorry, Lew. Just a dumb old scow boat captain shooting his mouth off there."

  Conorado smiled and clapped Tuit on the shoulder. Outside, they stepped into the bright sunlight. "Where to now, Hank?"

  "Oh, I'm back to Fargo. See if Sewall's got another ship for me or if I go into retirement. How 'bout you, Lew?"

  "Back to 34th FIST. My place is with them. Let's take the tube to the port and, as the shepherd said, get the flock out of here."

  "Hey!" someone called from behind them. It was Charles Lenfen. He came straight up to Conorado. "You screwed my sister, you bastard! All this crap about ‘knights’ and ‘heroes’ and stuff! All you wanted was a warm woman on a long voyage, you—"

  Conorado reached out and grabbed the young man by his shirtfront. "You are beginning to piss me off, Charles. What was between your sister and me was our business and not yours. Now you get out of my face or by God I'll wipe off the front of this building with you." He let Charles go and stepped back, breathing hard. Charles just stood there, his mouth working but no words coming out. Suddenly, Conorado relented. "God forgive me, Charles, I did love your sister! It was just like she wrote. But Charles, nobody can be a ‘knight’ without a princess. Jennifer was my princess."

  Charles Lenfen slowly folded to the ground, weeping. Conorado sighed. "Come on, come on, Charles," he said softly, lifting him up. He laid a hand on the sobbing man's shoulder. "Charles, I don't mean to be harsh, but be a man. Get over what's happened and get on with your life."

  "But we don't even have a body to bury, Captain," Charles sobbed.

  Conorado tapped Charles on the chest above the heart. "You don't need a body, a monument. She'll always be here. I have about two hundred souls in there, Charles. Jenny's number 201. Come over here with me." He led Charles to some benches surrounding a small garden with a fountain in its center. Conorado motioned for Tuit to leave them alone.

  "Charles, what I'm about to tell you now is breaking the law, but I'm going to tell you anyway." When he finished, he stood up. "Charles, you or your family, if I can ever help you in any way, you know where to find me. Time to go." He held out his hand.

  "Captain, thanks. I appreciate what you've shared with me. I—I apologize for—"

  "Don't mention it."

  "Won't you and Captain Tuit stay with us for a while? Maybe stay for dinner with Mother and me?"

  "Thanks, Charles. But we have ships to catch, and I'm going home."

  "And where is that for you, sir?"

  Conorado hesitated. "Home is where they have to take you in when you get there, and for me that's 34th FIST."

  Admiral Joseph K. C. B. Porter, Chairman of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, snarled his displeasure. "Goddamned Marines!" he thundered. "Always charging in somewhere, always blasting their chops about how goddamned ready to fight they are, but let them get their tails in a hard place and they scream for the army." He drummed his fingers on his desk. "And besides, we go sending combat units all over the place, the existence of these," he gestured with a hand but did not mention Skinks, "will become common knowledge. You and I both know that is ultrasecret. I cannot authorize this without much, much higher authority."

  "Well, it's not exactly the army they're asking for, sir," the Combined Chiefs operations officer, the C3, an army major general, protested. "The officer on the scene, this Brigadier Sturgeon, has only asked the commandant to release another FIST to support him on this—this—" He consulted his reader. "—Kingdom. Sir, his report is pretty grim."

  "I've read it. Over who's authority was the request forwarded to us?"

  "The deputy commandant, sir, General Aguilano. He's acting in the temporary absence of the commandant, who's on travel this whole month."

  "You see! You see!" Porter slammed his fist on his desk, "There they go again, passing the buck up the chain, putting the goddamned monkey on my back! I haven't forgotten what happened to Wimbush, when that Aguilano commanded the ground forces on Diamunde! Oh, nosiree. Oh, yes, he's the guy who screwed up on Diamunde and then got old Wimbush axed over the whole affair. Well, they ain't getting this old salt."

  "How high should we send this request then, Admiral?"

  "To the goddamned President!" Porter thundered. "First we go into the tank with it next meeting of the chiefs, then once I get their recommendation—I'm not taking sole responsibility for this—I'll take it to her with our advice. That's the way it works."

  "But, sir, that'll take time. The chiefs won't meet again until next week and—"

  "Goddamned right, C3! Next regularly scheduled meeting is soon enough. I won't call an emergency session for something like this!"

  "—and the Marines have asked for an immediate decision," the C3 concluded weakly.

  "Look, General, this is not some lighthearted comic opera we're running here, no goddamned HMS Pinafore—always hated that nonsense," he added as an aside. "You know it's vital to Confederation security and stability that we keep this business with you-know-who quiet. If it ever gets out they're kicking ass, the panic will never end, and worse, everyone'll know the government's been holding a goddamned monster by the tail without warning anyone. We send in more Marines and that's just that many more people in on the secret. And what happens if they get wiped out too? No. Contain them—that's going to be my advice to the chiefs and to the President." Admiral Porter leaned back in his chair. "Now, General, on to something we can deal with: the CCS picnic next month!"

  The army general gave up and pocketed his reader. "Well, we've got Burnsides to cater for us..."<
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  "That worthless ass," General Aguilano muttered.

  "Which one, sir?" the Marine Corps sergeant major, Bill Bambradge, asked. He was sitting in Aguilano's office, enjoying a morning cup of coffee.

  "Porter. Sturgeon's request for reinforcements, Sergeant Major. The Combined Chiefs won't even consider Sturgeon's request until the regular session the following week. I know Porter will take this to the President, Bill. He'd never act on something like this on his own authority."

  The sergeant major had not been read in on the Skinks, but he had a good idea what was going on with 34th FIST on Kingdom, and it was pretty much common knowledge at HQ Marine Corps that they'd had several contacts with sentient—and not very friendly—alien entities. "Well, the commandant could go see him directly. If he wasn't away in China just now."

  "Yeah," Aguilano mused. "Funny thing, isn't it, Bill? We send men to the stars, but Earth is still a big goddamned place. Well, Sergeant Major, you know the old expression: It's better to beg forgiveness than to be blamed for doing nothing in a crisis."

  "Yessir. I believe I invented that."

  Aguilano touched a spot on his desktop and his computer morphed out of it. "Deployment status of all Marine FISTs within thirty days' travel distance of the Kingdom of Yahweh and His Saints and Their Apostles," he asked. A short list of units appeared on the screen. "Dispatch a deployment order to Commander, 8th Fleet, requesting 126th FIST on Gambini be released immediately on a combat order to CM 327. Send it under my authority as Acting Commandant, Confederation Marine Corps. Standard annexes except under Operations Annex, 126th FIST to be placed under the operational control of Commander, 34th FIST. Standard distribution on information copies."

  The sergeant major laughed. "One twenty-sixth FIST will be on its way before the boys at the Combined Chiefs sort through their mail. But sir, you will be called on the carpet for this one, you know?"

  "Yep, Bill, I probably will be. Probably have the cops down on me too. But you know what? Ted Sturgeon's FIST is in trouble, and goddamnit, I will not let him down. And you know something else? If they get these stars of mine, I'll go out with a big smile on my face because first thing I'm going to do is go over to the Combined Chiefs and kick old Joseph K. C. B. Porter right in the ass." He grinned. "Give me one of your cigars, Sergeant Major!"

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Staff Sergeant Wu led the dozen Marines of his recon squad through Haven's sewers. Their destination was the river behind the Skink locations, the river to which the Skinks would most likely withdraw when their attack on Haven was beaten off. The Marines had their faces covered by masks that tucked tightly inside their helmets and shirt tops. Even without having to smell the stench of the sewers or risk being overcome by them, the going was more unpleasant than the Swamp of Perdition had been. The Marines' ears were constantly assailed by the shushing of fresh additions to the sewers' water, glugs and pops of gas bubbles that rose to the surface and burst, the gurgles and clunks of things better left unrecognized swishing about or punting against their bodies, the walls, or other objects. The water in places barely sloshed over the tops of their boots, and in places it was chest deep to a short Marine. Their infras showed strange shapes that corresponded to nothing they knew in the world above. Their light gatherers gave shifting and shimmering images Edgar Allan Poe might have seen in drugged dreams. The unaided eye saw the eerie glow of bioluminesence.

  The sewers didn't empty into the river, they fed into subterranean settling tanks. The river fed into the sewers, to add purer water to the tanks and help the settling process. The river's water flushed into the sewers a kilometer and a half from Haven's border via a waterfall high enough that even at flood stage the sewers' water couldn't back into the river. Alongside the waterfall a ladder of metal rungs had been stapled to the ferrocrete wall.

  The Marines climbed the ladder, and it was clear that no maintenance crew had gone that way for a long time; the rungs were slick with lichenous growths. Wu, leading from the front, climbed slowly, scraping the rungs bare, careful to drop the scummy growth to the sides where it wouldn't slop onto the Marines who climbed below him. At the top of the ladder, Wu led the way into the coursing water from the river and let it wash away the things that stuck to their uniforms, let it wash away the stench of the sewers.

  After an hour-long trek that felt more like a full day, the Marines emerged into daylight and deployed. Team one went a kilometer upstream, team two downstream an equal distance. Team three stayed with Wu. The thirty-meter-wide river cut its way through a forest so dense that tree branches met over it and turned it into a tunnel. The ground under the trees was thick with fallen leaves, decaying their way into the underlying dirt.

  The recon squad leader found a place that would mask the infrared signatures made by him and the five Marines with him. He listened to the crack-sizzle of Marine artillery in the middle distance. More distant and muffled were the roars of Marine Raptors and Kingdomite Avenging Angels, low behind hills to protect them from the weapons of the Skinks. The weapons of the Skinks were inaudible, as were the reports from Marine blasters. There was no way to tell by listening how the battle was going. At least he didn't hear anything that might be that awful weapon the Skinks had. Wu set his men to placing detection devices; sound, motion, infrared, olfactory, seismic.

  In good time teams one and two reported they were in place, and then that their detectors were out. Wu made his report to FIST. FIST gave a one word reply, "Continue." In this case, it didn't mean move on, it meant stay in place and monitor. They sat tight and monitored.

  An hour later team one reported, "Approaching, fast." A moment later team two made the same report.

  Wu's monitors showed indications of large numbers of figures to his front moving riverward from Haven. He gave a three word report to FIST: "Approaching, full, fast." The monitors showed rapid movement toward all three recon teams.

  The recon Marines tried to melt into the ground, to become one with the mulch. The last thing a recon Marine wants is direct contact with the enemy. If the enemy discovers him, his mission is compromised; he is normally vastly outnumbered and outarmed; he has relatively little chance of survival if he's discovered. They didn't want to be seen.

  Wu kept his eyes glued on the monitors, tried to make sense of what they told him. Hundreds of figures, mostly smaller than normal humans, though some were the size of exceptionally large men, were headed toward the river. Though their physical forms looked fully human in the dark of the forest, their infrared signatures indicated either much smaller masses or significantly lower body temperatures. The sound monitors picked up a language that sounded like low growls and soft barks.

  Wu was so intent on his monitors that several nearby shouts and closer crack-sizzles caught him totally by surprise—they'd been spotted. A few meters away Lance Corporal Donat screamed in agony when a stream of acid hit him. Wu looked up in time to see a giant figure pointed, fired, and rolled as the sword arced down at him, slicing deep into the ground where he had been. He was momentarily blinded by the brilliant flash when the giant Skink vaporized.

  By the time he could see again, the Skinks were all in the river and out of sight underwater. The sensors he'd left in the water showed them moving rapidly downstream.

  He called in his report. A few minutes later the Raptors were using the string-of-pearls guidance system to bombard the river downstream from the recon Marines, but there was no way of knowing what effect the bombardment had because the missiles' heat signatures picked up by the string-of-pearls through the trees that roofed the river were so brilliant they washed out any that might have been from flashing Skinks.

  Wu called for reports from his teams. Five Marines were down; one of them would probably die if he didn't get immediate attention. Now that the mission was complete, the recon squad leader turned his attention to the sword that had so narrowly missed him. He yanked it out of the ground and held it for inspection. Its blade shimmered, and he marveled at it.
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  A sword. It was the middle of the twenty-fifth century, and a soldier in an opposing army had just tried to kill him with a sword. He realized he understood the Skinks even less than he'd thought.

  Not long after the attacking Skinks withdrew, Brigadier Sturgeon and Ambassador Spears were again summoned.

  "I have sent for more Marines," Sturgeon told the five religious leaders.

  "How long will it take for them to get here?" Ayatollah Shammar asked. He was somewhat chastened after the Skink attack on Haven. He did not look at Kingdom's other leaders. Swami Nirmal Bastar gazed speculatively at Sturgeon; he no longer resembled a ferocious ancient god. Venerable Muong Bo looked serene. Cardinal Leemus O'Lanners's fingers twiddled as though he was worrying beads. Bishop Ralphy Bruce Preachintent fidgeted, but he kept his own counsel.

  Sturgeon had already calculated the wait for reinforcements: two months for the drone to get to Earth, a week for General Aguilano to get the message and get orders issued, a total of three months for the orders and an amphibious ship to reach the base of another FIST and for that FIST to reach Kingdom; pad in a few weeks for delays anywhere along the line.

  "About half a year, standard," he said.

  "If you withdraw your Marines from the countryside, can you defend Haven from the demons for half a year?"

  "We can try."

  "Then do so."

  "Immediately, Revered One."

  As he and Spears left the chamber, Sturgeon couldn't help but remember a time not so long ago that he'd been less than assured when General Aguilano said he'd "try." Marines have a saying, "Don't try, don't do your best. Do it." Brigadier Sturgeon had just said he'd try.