March to the Stars

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

"I wish we could use the pocking radios."

Roger peered through the battlefield smoke and cursed. The Krath army used about one arquebus for every ten soldiers, and between those, the Marines on the right, the Diaspran infantry on the left, and the occasional bombard firing from either side, the fields were covered in a veritable smokescreen. His helmet visor's systems gave him far better vision than any unaided eye could have provided, but that wasn't saying a lot. Worse, the billowing waves of smoke made it impossible to use visual signals in place of the radios. He could punch the occasional communications laser through, but enough gun smoke deprived him even of that.

"Tough, isn't it, Your Highness?" Pahner asked. "The fact is, up until we hit the Krath, you were spoiled as far as emissions discipline is concerned. When you don't have a complete monopoly on it, there are plenty of times when you don't have the luxury of using radio. Doesn't do to let the other side hear you, whether they can understand you or not. Then there's direction-finding. Or the battle could be taking place across lag distances where the turnaround time on transmissions just makes it impractical." He looked out across the smoke-covered fields between the two citadels and nodded. "At least this time you can almost see what's happening. That gives you at least a chance of judging what's going on."

Feet pounded on the stone steps behind them, and Roger turned to the runner who'd just arrived from the left wall. The sound in that direction had switched back to regular platoon volleys, he noted.

"How goes it, Orol?"

"Captain Fain says the enemy is off the wall and in retreat," the runner replied, rubbing blood from a cut at the base of his horns out of his eye.

"Bad?" Roger asked.

"Not really, Your Highness," the Mardukan said with a grunt of laughter. "They're not much as individual fighters; not a patch on the Boman. They barely got to the top of the wall, and we counterattacked with steel. We had a good killing."

Roger laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.

"Go get your head looked to, you old coot," he said. "There's more where those came from."

"Aye, and they'll be back tomorrow," the Mardukan replied. Then he saluted and headed back down the stairs, and Roger turned to Pahner.

"It sounds like the action on that side is pretty much the same as what's happening on the right. Time to sally?"

"I think so," Pahner replied. "Gastan?"

"If you think it wise," the Shin king said. "They could get bogged down and trapped, though," he added, looking just a bit dubious.

"Time to find out," Roger said, and walked to the rear of the wall. His position overlooked the courtyard directly behind the gates, which was currently packed with civan. The aggressive, bipedal omnivores were stamping their great three-toed feet and snapping at each other restlessly. The older of them recognized the conditions and were ready for action; it often led to a really good feed.

"Time for you to earn your damned pay, Rastar!" he shouted.

"Just make sure you're around to cover it!" the last Prince of Therdan shouted back, then looked at the commander of the gate tower. "Open the gates!"

The cavalry unit headed out in column of fours, crossing the double moat system and bypassing a bit of ruined siege tower from the Krath's farthest advance until they reached the outer works. Then they shook out into a single column, riding down the road and away from the castle at a walk. As the last rider cleared the outermost fortifications, the entire column began to pivot until it had turned into a line faced at right angles away from the roadway.

The instant the maneuver was completed, the civan broke into a long, bounding canter towards the left flank... and disappeared almost immediately into a fog bank of smoke.

"Blast!" Roger glared in disgust as the smoke overloaded his helmet's thermal sight capability—easier to do with the cold-blooded Mardukans than with most species. "The hell with this, I'm heading down to Fain's position. Maybe I can see something from there!"

"Very well, Your Highness," Pahner said, and gestured with his head to the collection of Marines and Diasprans, headed by Julian, who had remained behind to guard the prince's back. "But please keep firmly in mind that you are now Heir Primus."

"I will," Roger sighed. "I will."

Captain Fain looked up from a brief conversation with Erkum Pol and nodded as Roger loomed out of the smoke billowing up from the Diasprans' rifle fire.

"Good afternoon, Your Highness. How is it going with the rest of the wall?"

"They seem to have come in most heavily over here," Roger said, peering through the smoke towards the enemy trenches. "Is it just me, or do they seem to still be up and about?"

"As a matter of fact, they appear to be contemplating another attack, Your Highness," Fain replied. "I would consider that unwise, were I their commander, particularly given how disordered they are. But... nonetheless."

"They won't be contemplating it for long," Roger told the captain with an evil chuckle. "I'd hoped that they wouldn't have regained their trenches; it was too much to hope that they'd actually be getting ready to try again."

"Ah, are we going to witness a civan charge?" Fain asked, then gave a grunting Mardukan laugh when Roger nodded. "I'm sure Honal is just hating that!"

"I can't see a blasted thing!" Honal cursed.

"Well, if we stay on this heading, we should find something to attack... eventually. Even if we can't see it," Rastar said calmly, consulting the tactical map on the human pad Julian had programmed for him. "According to this, we're about two-thirds of the way to the forces opposite Fain."

"If that bloody Diaspran even knows where he is," Honal said as his civan stumbled in a hole. A Krath who appeared to be lost stumbled out of the fog of smoke within the sweep of Honal's sword and promptly died. "Come on, Valan!" Honal snarled as he flipped blood from his blade. "Give us a breeze!"

"Rain coming," Roger said as the sky darkened slightly. "That should finish off any visibility."

"Breaks of the game, Your Highness," Fain replied. "Of course, rain could lay some of the smoke, too, which wouldn't hurt." The native captain shrugged, never taking his eyes from the field before him. "I do believe that the Krath have dressed their lines. Perhaps you should consider moving back to the central keep."

"Hell with it," Roger said, leaning out and peering into the smoke himself. "I'm safe enough here."

Fain sighed and looked over his shoulder for Erkum Pol.

"You're safe enough for the time being, Your Highness. But if I ask you to retire, I must insist that you accept my judgment. I will not explain to Captain Pahner why I got you killed."

Roger looked at him with an expression very like surprise, then burst into laughter and nodded.

"All right, Krindi!" he said, wiping his eyes. "I'm sorry, but you sounded exactly like Pahner there."

"That wasn't my intention, Your Highness," the officer said, looking towards the Krath lines again. "But I don't consider it an insult. And, I have to add, that time might be soon."

The Krath used human-sized signs, held on long poles, as their unit guidons. The signs were marked with complex color patterns that designated unit and rank. In a culture without radio or any of the other adjuncts of high-tech civilization, such extremely simple visual signals were the only way for units to maintain cohesion in the smoke and confusion of a battlefield. The Krath had no option but to use them—or something very like them—if they wanted to hang on to any sort of organization, but the system also made it easier for the Diasprans to estimate when they had really reconsolidated. And they seemed to have gotten their act back together in record time.

"Just a bit more," Roger said. "Then I'll leave." He looked towards the Krath citadel, which had just disappeared behind a wall of silver. "Rain's almost here anyway. Won't be able to see a thing in a few minutes."

Even as he spoke, the blast of wind that precedes a storm tore aside the smoke, revealing the battlefield in all its detail.

"Oh, my," Roger said.

"Ho! My prayers are answered!" Honal said, as a breeze caressed his cheek. Then, as the smoke cleared, he grimaced. "Maybe it was better the other way."

The Krath hadn't simply reconsolidated the units which had just assaulted; they'd brought up reinforcements, as well. The new units had been deployed in blocks to either side of the original assault group, and the last few were moving into position as the smoke blew aside. Which left the Vashin barely two hundred meters from the nearest Krath battalion... which was just starting to dress its lines.

"Too late to worry about that!" Rastar snapped as he glanced in both directions. For a wonder, the cavalry had more or less kept its dress. "Now, for Shul's sake, don't get so carried away you get cut off or something; I'm tired of having to come to your rescue. Bugler, sound the charge!"

"The kazoos, the kazoos of the North,' " Roger muttered. The Vashin used a short metal and bone horn that sounded remarkably like a kazoo, to a human.

"Now that is pretty," Pahner commented over Roger's shoulder.

"I thought you were staying by the gates," Roger said, glancing back at the Marine. Then he returned his attention to the field. "And, yes it is."

The pennon-fluttering Vashin lances had come down as one, and the civan had burst into a gallop, heads down and legs pumping. The species was similar in appearance to the extinct Terran velociraptor, and nearly as dangerous. At the moment, laid flat-out, tails whipping to maintain their balance, they looked like the most dangerous thing in the galaxy. Coupled with the Vashin on their backs, they were certainly the most deadly shock melee force ever evolved on Marduk.

"What's that quote?" Roger asked softly. "Something about it's good that war is so terrible?"

" 'It is good that war is so terrible, else we might grow too fond of it.' An American general named Lee in the early industrial period. He had a point."

"It's beautiful," Roger said. "But the Krath are going to swallow them without a burp."

The battalion the Vashin were charging contained at least three times as many men as they had. And it was but one of at least twenty drawn up in front of the walls.

"After fighting the Boman, the one thing Rastar knows is when to disengage," Pahner pointed out.

"Let's hope," Roger replied.

Rastar tried to withdraw the lance which had just transfixed the Krath infantryman, but it was stuck fast. He hated to give up the weapon's reach advantage, but he also knew better than to make himself a stationary target trying to recover it. And so he kept right on moving while he drew his sword and slashed at one of the swarming locals just as his civan stamped at another. The wicked, iron-shod claws shredded their target's torso even as the sword bit into flesh, but it was obvious they were getting bogged.

It wasn't that the locals were trained to receive cavalry. Indeed, the battalion that they'd struck at first was gone, shattered and scattered to the winds. But there'd been another behind it, and still more forces pouring out of the trenches. At this point, the Vashin were almost surrounded simply because of the sheer inertia of the Krath forces on either flank of their penetration. The terrified infantry wanted to get out of the way, but there was nowhere for them to go.

He looked around for the bugler and realized he was almost all alone.

"Bloody hell," he muttered. It was a curse Honal had picked up from the human healer, and it was appropriate for the moment. The ground in every direction was covered with bodies. "I really need to get us out of this."

He began waving at nearby units, gathering them about him as he headed to the rear and the rain began to fall. At first, the drops were scattered, but in moments the storm had become a real Mardukan gullywasher. Water pounded down like a hammer—or a waterfall—and quickly formed puddles nearly knee deep to a human.

Rastar slashed down a few of the locals on the way out, especially when they were delaying his forces, but his main objective now was to withdraw his men intact, not to run up his body count. He'd only drawn his pistols once, but when he saw a cluster around a group of dismounted Vashin, all four came out. The Vashin, including Honal, were hunkered down behind their dropped civan, slashing and firing at a group of about twenty Krath who obviously wanted their weapons and harnesses.

Rastar pressed the civan into a gallop, and it responded wearily. He could tell the beast was badly fatigued, but its feet spurned the bodies of the fallen and it leapt over the occasional civan body until it finally bounded into the midst of the Krath attackers. Rastar laid down a curtain of revolver fire all around himself, while the civan kicked and bit in every direction, until a dozen of the other troopers he'd rallied came charging in to finish the enemy off .

"Rastar!" Honal protested as he drove his sword into one of the wounded Krath. "You're not leaving any for me!"

Rastar leaned over and offered his cousin an arm up as one of the other troopers dismounted to retrieve the bugler and the flag of Therdan.

"And what the hell was the colors group doing following you, and not me?" he demanded.

"You bloody idiot! You ran ahead of us. And you complain about me being headstrong! We got bogged down, and there you were, charging into the distance like some kid!"

"Oh, sure, blame it on me," Rastar said. He took the bugle from the bugler, who was clearly too cut up to wield it, and put it to his lips.

"Sounds like they're withdrawing," Pahner said, stepping back under an awning as the skies opened up.

"I wonder if the Krath will advance in this?" Roger asked.

"Probably, Your Highness," the Gastan said.

"What is this, 'Follow Roger Week'?" Roger asked with a smile he hoped the Gastan interpreted correctly.

"The buildup on this flank was easy to note," the Gastan said. "I'm not sure the sally was worth the loss of your riding beasts."

"I don't think it was," Roger agreed. "And even if the raiding party in the rear started any fires, they've been put out by the rain."

"Time for Plan B," Pahner mused. "If we had one. But the only one I can think of is to take the spaceport first. Gastan, I won't argue for that plan, but how long would it take for a force to make it to the port from here?"

"No more than twenty days," the Gastan replied. "Less for runners. I can have a message to Temu Jin in less than nine, and a reply in twice that."

The brief, intense rain squall was already clearing, and Roger gazed at the distant fortress.

"It's slightly lower than us, but we don't have any effective artillery to destroy it," he mused.

"They were starting to cast real siege cannon in K'Vaern's Cove," Julian said. Then he grimaced apologetically. "Sorry, just brainstorming. Too far, too long."

"And what would we do if we destroyed the walls?" Roger asked, gesturing at the Krath. The good news was that it seemed the combination of rain and the sally had caused the enemy to withdraw for the day, but— "They still outnumber us forty-to-one," he observed.

"We broke up their formations when they came at us by targeting the leadership," Fain said. The concept of brainstorming had been explained to him, and he found it a valid idea. "It was a technique I'd considered against the Boman, but I was never able to implement it at the time; my men weren't good enough shots. All the target practice since made the difference."

"The French introduced that technique during the Napoleonic wars," Pahner commented. "Congratulations on rediscovering it. I should have suggested it."

"But we can't snipe them to death," Roger said, looking up at the mountains looming above the citadel. The mountains to the north and south had relatively shallow slopes, and the Krath fortress had been cut into them. But beyond that, the valley necked down to the gorge of the Shin River. From there, it dropped over a thousand meters to the town of Thirlot. "We could drop teams on them, but even with armor, that would be pinpricks."

"Assassinate the leadership?" Julian suggested.

"They're relatively civilized," Pahner pointed out. "They're fighting by policy, not personality, and they have a solid chain of command. If we kill the current leaders, their replacements will step into their positions with hardly a ripple. Otherwise, that would work."

"We could roll rocks down the hill on them," Julian said. "Gronningen can handle the boulders."

"Pinpricks again," Pahner objected. "Even a large landslide onto the citadel or the army wouldn't do enough damage. Even if we did it several times, they'd just give up the slopes. And we still couldn't move them."

"Do it enough, and it might break their will," Julian argued mulishly. " 'The objective is to break the will of the enemy.' "

"A combination of all of them?" Fain mused. "Marines and my fellows sniping, the Shin to take to the heights and start rockslides, the occasional sally and raid... over time, we might be able to wear them down to the point they'd quit the field?"

"No." Roger shook his head, still looking at the distant ranges. "Not a battle of attrition; we need a battle of checkmate. Gastan, how long, again, to get a message to Jin?"

"Nine days." The Shin king gave Roger a sidelong glance. "What are you considering?"

"I'm going to make them wish they'd never pissed me off," Roger said. "I'm going to get them to surrender, without the need for a single battle. I'm going to send them home without their arms, their food, their bedding, or their pretty little tents. And with virtually no loss of life. I'm going to humiliate them."

"And how, exactly, are you going to do all that, Your Highness?" Pahner asked.

"I'm going to introduce them to geology," Roger said with a feral smile.

Pahner looked at him, then up at the mountains, and then up at the end of the valley. The intensity of his speculation was obvious, but, finally, he shrugged with a puzzled expression.

"The salient point to the plan is that this entire valley was once a lake," Roger said, looking around the steam-filled room.

The conference had been moved to the town of Mudh Hemh for a multitude of reasons, but the main one was that Roger wanted input from Despreaux. Since all the wounded had been moved to Mudh Hemh, the conference had to be moved to follow them.

The shift was beneficial on another level, as well. Although the town was filled with the sharp smell of rotten eggs from the nearby geothermal area, it was also surprisingly pleasant for the humans—which, of course, meant unpleasantly chilly for Mardukans. The Shin of Mudh Hemh maintained their movement ability by bathing in the warm waters from the Fire Lands, and the town was half-barbarian village, half-sybaritic spa.

Indeed, since the conference had been pushed into evening, it ended up being held in the primary bathhouse of the Gastan; and most of the Mardukans were submerged up to their necks in the steaming hot water. In any other circumstances, the thought of a major war-planning session being held in a spa would've been ludicrous. But to the Bronze Barbarians, who had held them in pouring thunderstorms, swamps, mountains, and flooded plains over the last half-year, this was infinitely better than many alternatives. The sight of Dogzard, paddling from person to person to mooch treats, and of the IAS journalist, discreetly filming the entire conference, simply added an amusing counterpoint.

But the prince had to admit that the sight of Nimashet, half-undressed to submerge in the water, was a tad distracting.

"The geology of this region indicates that during the last glacial period, the valley was first carved by a glacier, and then the glacier was slowly replaced by a deep upland lake," he continued, and threw up the first picture, a representation of the valley with the lake sketched in. He hoped that it was clear enough that the Shin, unaccustomed as they were to representations, would understand what they were seeing.

"Somewhere around the vicinity of Queicuf, there was once a massive dam—probably half volcanic debris, and half ice; you can still see some of the traces of it in the slight prominence that Queicuf is established upon.

"It's the sediment from that upland lake and the ash from the volcanoes that gives you the rich soil you till. But the most important point for us right this minute is that it's possible to create the lake again."

"You're not going to flood the valley!" one of the chieftains protested.

Roger had sketched out the plan for the Gastan before the conference, and he more than suspected that the wily Shin monarch had planted that particular question. The chieftain who'd "spontaneously" blurted out the protest was one of the Gastan's personal retainers, and Pedi's father had very carefully gone over the points which might be expected to create concerns among his followers when he and Roger first discussed the possibilities. The human prince was beginning to appreciate how skillfully the Gastan manipulated his meetings. It was an important point to retain for his own later use, and also one to keep in the forefront of his mind now. If the Gastan decided that he didn't like a human plan, he was going to be a dangerously capable opponent.

"No," Roger said now, with a grin and a wave of his arms that replicated, as well as the under-equipped, two-armed humans could, the Mardukan gesture for intense amusement. "No, not the entire valley—just the bit the Krath are standing on."

A wave of ripples spread out from the chieftains gathered in the steaming water, and by the way some peered at the hologram and rubbed their horns, he could see that they understood the representation just fine.

"Even if we wanted to flood the entire valley, we don't have the materials," Roger told them. "What we propose to do is to drop a portion of the mountainside above the Shin River where it exits the valley. Please send messages to our contacts in the spaceport requesting that they send us as much octocellulose as possible. That's a very strong conventional explosive, and we'll use it first to drill holes in the slopes above the exit, and then to blow out a large chunk of the mountain.

"This chunk will create a temporary dam. We should be able to drop enough material into the river to raise the level to a point which will force the Krath to move out into the open, under our walls. The alternative will be drowning, or at least standing in cold water up to their groins. Their army will have no choice but to surrender."

"Or to charge the walls," one of the other chieftains said darkly.

"The water is going to rise fast," Pahner interjected. "They'll have, at most, two hours to decide what to do and to do it, and all the indications are that they're pretty incapable of reacting to surprise. I'd be astonished if they could even get a decision made in two hours, much less implement it."

"But if they realize what we're planning," Roger said, "and the preparations will of necessity take place in plain sight, they'll have ample time to plan a response. So we'll have to have a deception plan. We'll make it look as if the forces emplacing the charges are actually building a fortress to threaten their logistics line."

"What if we can't get the explosives?" Despreaux prompted.

"In that case, we'll use gunpowder," Roger said. "There's a powder mill here; Mudh Hemh is a primary supplier. It will take longer, and more materials, but it'll still work."

"I could make some nitro," she mused. "They have everything I need."

"I'd prefer you in one piece," Roger told her with a grin. "Nitroglycerin is far too volatile. If we can get the octocellulose, let's go with that."

"You said a temporary dam," the Gastan said. "How 'temporary'?"

"It will last at least two days," Roger said confidently. "It may last for years, depending on how the material falls."

"It could be made semi-permanent, if you wish," Fain interjected. "We Diasprans are quite familiar with such structures; with a few days' work, we could insure that it stays up for weeks. With a few weeks, we could make it permanent. That assumes that the subgrade is good—I'd need to look at that. But I concur on the couple of days, minimum. The material of the mountain appears to be a mixture of this black rock—"

"Basalt," Roger said.

"This 'basalt,' and the fine ash. The basalt will create the structure, and the ash—which is notably nonporous—will fill the gaps. I suspect that it will make an excellent dam all by itself."

"I have seen dams like this," one of the highland chiefs offered. "They're scattered throughout the mountains. This... this could work. If you can 'drop' enough of the mountain."

"If we can get the octocellulose, that's not a problem," Roger said with a shrug. "A piece of octocellulose the size of your thumb has the explosive power of a keg of gunpowder. The material is hard to describe, but it's a very tight packing of eight carbon molecules associated with nitrates, such as your saltpeter that goes in gunpowder. It's a common explosive among my people."

"We can't just lay it on the surface, Your Highness," Doc Dobrescu interjected. "We'll have to dig the charges in. Dig 'em in deep, if you want the sort of material movement you're talking about."

"That will be a challenge," Roger said. "I spoke with Krindi about it, and we can either blow out a sort of mining cavity by hammering in a spike and then blasting out the cavity, or we can try to produce very long steel drills that can be hammered in over time."

"Nah," Julian said. "Despreaux, can you make a shaped charge?"

"Sure," the sergeant replied, then grimaced. "Well, supervise," she amended, shrugging her arm. "There are field expedient shaped charges you can make out of hammered iron. Why?"

"I had a buddy who was an engineer," Julian said with a thoughtful expression. "He said that when they were in school, they made craters by first blowing a hole with shaped charges, then filling the cavity with explosives. I don't know the size of the shaped charges, though, or how much to put in."

"Well, if we blow a series of holes, then pack them with a combination of octocellulose and gunpowder, not having the materials for a decent ANFO slurry, it should work," Despreaux said, her face lighting up.

"I think that your paramour likes explosives more than you, Prince Roger," the Gastan commented dryly, and Roger shrugged as grunting Mardukan laughter filled the room. His relationship with Despreaux had become widely known.

"She likes it hot, what can I say?"

"We still have to assume that the Krath will become aware of our plans," the Gastan said.

"Even if they do, they'll find it difficult to attack the workings," Roger responded. "Your forces—and ours—fight better on the heights."

"Still, I think they'll try," the Gastan said. "And when they fail to take them, they'll come here, instead."

"They've come before!" one of the chieftains protested, dipping into the sulfurous water and coming back up blowing bubbles. "We'll stop them as we have before!"

"If they all come at once?" the Gastan asked. "Desperate in their fear of the rising waters?"

"You'll have to be prepared to offer them a truce, you realize," Roger said. This, too, was something he and the Gastan—and O'Casey—had discussed, and so he was prepared to look around mildly as the bellows of protest arose. One serendipitous advantage of having the conference in the bath chamber was that the chieftains were unarmed. Of course, it still looked as if they were willing to tear him limb from limb with their bare hands.

"No quarter for the Burners of the Shin!" "Death to the Krath!" "Blood! Blood!"

"What?" Roger shouted back, waving his hands at them. O'Casey had helped the Gastan set this part up, and the prince could see her trying not to smile.

"You can't kill them all!" he continued. "I don't mean 'you shall not'; I mean you cannot! You'd have to cut throats until your arms fell off! And that assumes they lined up to have them cut! No, you're going to have to feed them, instead, which means bringing in food from the upper Krath and across the Shesul Pass, so the first thing to do is put them to work repairing that road. You do realize that you're going to be disarming them all, right? And that all their weapons and armor are going to be spoils?"

He looked around at the suddenly silent chieftains and saw the credit signs dancing in their eyes.

"Yep. For that matter, you can probably squeeze the Krath for tribute. This is Kirsti's primary field army. If they don't have it, the next satrap up the line can take all the territory he wants—they're probably holding him back by an agreement to refrain while they crush you. If you crush them, instead, they're going to be between a rock and a hard place. Tributes galore. Control of Queicuf again, control of all the trade routes, tribute—hell, an end to the slave raids and sacrifices. 'When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.' "

"You make it sound so easy," one of the chieftains complained.

"Ah, well, that's my job," Roger said with a grin. They laughed again, but then he allowed his grin to fade. "Easy? No. They'll probably hit Nopet Nujam hard. They might hit Nopet Vusof. But they won't have much time to do anything, unless someone goes tattling from this meeting. If we use cratering charges—and that sounds like the best plan—we can drop the mountainside the day after we reach the heights. Two hours after it goes down, the water will be up to their tents."

"We must be ready to face a heavy attack, though," the Gastan said. "We will need every warrior ready, either on the walls or resting for their time. With the aid of our human allies, we may yet win the day—win it fully, and for all time. But there is hard battle ahead of us still, and we must steel ourselves for it. The Shin! Death to the Krath!"

"DEATH TO THE KRATH!"