March To The Stars im-3

by David Weber

  Cord's arm sweep knocked Roger to the side, but the short, broad blade of the spear took the shaman just below the right, lower shoulder.

  "Bloody hell!" Roger rebounded painfully off the stone wall. Then he saw Cord. "Bloody pocking hell!"

  The spear was embedded deep in the shaman's lower chest. Cord lay on his back, breathing shallowly and holding the spear still, but Roger knew the pain had to be enormous.

  "Ah, man, Cord," he said, dropping to his knees. His hands fluttered over the surface of the shaman's mostly naked body, but he wasn't sure what to do. The spear was in the shaman's gut up to the haft. "I gotta get you to Doc Dobrescu, buddy!"

  "Get out," Cord spat. "Get out now!"

  "None of that," Roger said, and looked across at Pedi. The shaman's benan had both blood-covered swords crossed across her knees. "I guess we both missed that one, huh?"

  "Will my shame never end?" she asked bitterly. "I turn my back only for a moment, and this—!" She shook her head. "We must take it out, or it will fester."

  "And if we do that, we'll increase the bleeding," Roger disagreed sharply. "We need to get him to the doc."

  "Whatever we do, Your Highness, we'd better do it quick," Kosutic said. "We've got the door clear, but the rear guard isn't going to last forever."

  "Take the Marines. Clear the tower," Roger snapped as he pulled out his knife. Even with the monomolecular blade, the spear shaft twisted as he secured a firm grip on it, then sliced through it. The shaman took shallow breaths and slimed at every vibration, but the only sound he actually made came with the last jerk, as the shaft parted—a quiet whine, like Dogzard when she wanted a snack.

  "We'll carry him out," Roger said as he threw the truncated shaft viciously across the stinking, smoke-choked stone chamber.

  "We who?" Kosutic asked, shaking her head as she imagined trying to lift the two hundred-kilo shaman. Then she drew a deep breath. "Yes, Sir."

  "Ammo! Anybody got any?" Birkendal called from the door. "Most of the lower room is clear, but we're taking fire from the second story."

  "I do." Despreaux threw him her ammo pouch. "St. John, take your team and clear the upper stories," she continued. "I'll take an arm, Pedi takes an arm, Roger takes a leg, and we let the other one dangle."

  "Chim Pri's down," Roger said as he grabbed a leg. "Who in hell is in charge of the Mardukans?"

  "Sergeant Knever," Despreaux said. "Knever! We are leaving!"

  She saw a thumbs-up sign come out of the force packed around the doorway and grabbed Cord's arm.

  "Let's go!"

  * * *

  Poertena stepped over the remains of one of the Vashin cavalry. He placed the satchel charge against the door, pulled the friction tab to start the fuse, and looked around in the gloom for some cover. His helmet adjusted everything to a light level of sixty percent standard daylight, but the rendering washed out shadows, which had a negative effect on depth perception. Despite that, he could clearly tell that there wasn't much cover on the wall, but at least ducking around to the right of the door put a slight protuberance between his body and the two kilos of blasting powder.

  He set his helmet to "Seal," folded his body into the smallest possible space, and pushed against the tower wall, but the overpressure wave still shook him like a terrier shaking a rat. The oversized pack was no help at all, as the blast wave caught it where it protruded from cover, spun him away from shelter, and hammered him down on the wall's stonework. He picked himself up and shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs, and took a mental inventory of the situation. The downside was that he couldn't hear a thing; the upside was that there was now a hole where the door used to be.

  Not that he had a whole long time to evaluate things.

  Poertena had never been much of a hand with a rifle. He realized that no true Marine would ever admit to such an ignoble failing, yet there it was. And he was an even worse shot with the chemical-powered rifles the company had improvised in K'Vaern's Cove. Which was why he'd built himself a pump-action shotgun at the same time he designed Honal's.

  It was smaller bore than the Vashin's portable canon, and shorter than normal, with a pistol grip carved from wood and a barrel barely thirty centimeters long. It held only five shells, and kicked like a mule, but it had one saving grace—as long as you held the trigger back, it would fire with each "pump."

  Poertena demonstrated that capability to the Mardukans picking themselves up off of the floor in the room beyond the demolished door. There were clearly more of them than shells in the ammo tube, but he didn't let that stop him as he furiously pumped and pointed, filling the room with ricocheting balls of lead, smoke, and patterns of blood.

  The hammer clicked on an empty breech, and he rolled out of the doorway and back into his original cover. He lay there, licking a slice on the back of his hand where one of the ricochets had come too close, then reloaded while the second wave of Vashin finally made it up the slippery stairs.

  "I t'ink I leave it up to you line-dogs from here," he said to the Mardukan cavalrymen as the last round clicked into the magazine.

  "What? You mean leave some for us?" Honal asked. He stopped by the hole and glanced in. "So, how many were there?"

  "I dunno." Poertena glanced at the far tower as shots rang out from its top floor. "Not enough, apparen'ly."

  He'd decided not to stare at the muzzle of the medium bombard pointed from the top of the other tower to sweep the wall. It had fired once—carrying away the entire first wave of Vashin who'd been supposed to cover his own approach with the demo charge—and he'd fully expected it to sweep him away, as well. But the bombard crew had apparently had more important things on their minds after firing that first shot. Now the gun shuddered for a moment, then rolled out of the way to reveal a human face.

  "Birkendal, what t'e pock you doing up t'ere?" Poertena called. "Get you ass down here and do some real work!"

  "Oh, sure!" the private called back. "Expecting gratitude from a Pinopan is like expecting exact change from a K'Vaernian!"

  "What is t'is t'ing, 'exact change'?" Poertena asked with a shrug, and followed Honal through the hole.

  * * *

  Roger thrust the blade of his sword through the doorway, then moved forward. There was a hole in the base of the opposite tower, which was apparently the inner side of the main gatehouse, and he could hear shots from the upper stories. But the top of the wall was momentarily clear.

  There was more fighting to the south, back into town. It looked like the Diasprans and Vashin were being used to hold off the Kirsti forces. From the looks of the locals, there were more of the city guards, armed only with staves, and a sprinkling of the formal "Army." They were distinguishable by their heavier armor and heavier spears. The weapons were something like the Roman pilum, and the soldiers wielded them well, holding a good shield wall and pressing hard against the human-trained infantry.

  The Diasprans and Vashin had been pushed back by force of numbers, and now they were so compacted they could barely use their firearms. It was obvious, however, that neither group had forgotten its genesis as cold steel fighters, for the Diasprans had brought forward their assegai troops. That elite force had started as city guards, similar to the locals, and had since smashed two barbarian armies in its travels with humans. Side-by-side with the Vashin, who had drawn their long glittering swords, the Diasprans held the Kirsti forces at bay. More than that, they were probably killing at least three of the locals for each of their own who fell.

  But the locals had the numbers to take that casualty rate, and Roger could see more moving up the roads to reinforce the attack. It was only a matter of time before the Vashin and the Diasprans were overwhelmed. Time to get the hell out of Dodge. Or Kirsti, or wherever this was.

  "So many cities, so many skirmishes," he muttered as the remnants of his own party poured through the door behind him.

  Sergeant Knever was the last through, and the Diaspran closed it behind him.

  "We've sealed the d
oors on the other side and set a slow fuse on the gun powder store," the sergeant said with a salute. The nice thing about Mardukans was that they could salute and keep their weapons trained at the same time, and Knever was careful to cover his prince even while saluting. "Shaman Cord is being evacuated back to the company, and all live personnel are clear of the building. We had three more killed in action, and two wounded, besides Shaman Cord. Both of those have also been evacuated."

  The sergeant paused for a moment, then coughed on the harsh, smoky air.

  "What about the dead?" Roger asked.

  "Per your instructions, we loaded them in the Marine disposal utilities and burned them, Sir," the sergeant replied.

  "I'm really tired of this shit," Roger said, checking his toot. It was barely ten a.m., local time. In a day which lasted thirty-six hours, that made it barely two hours after sunrise. "Christ, this is going to be a long day. We need to didee, Sergeant."

  "Yes, Sir," Knever agreed, and waved towards the far tower. "After you, Sir."

  The sergeant took one more look to the north, into the mysterious darkness of the valley. As far as the eye could see, there were thousands, millions—billions—of scattered lights, lining the darkness of the valley floor. What created the lights was unclear, but it appeared that the city continued for kilometers and kilometers and kilometers. He gazed at the vista for a moment, then shook his head in a human gesture.

  "This is not going to be good."

  * * *

  "Now, this is not good," Honal said sharply. The upper compartment of the tower was a mass of wheels, belts, and chains. "We need some Diasprans up here, or something."

  "Nah, you gots me," Poertena panted as he made it up the last stairs. He grabbed the wall and his side. "Jesu Christo, I t'ink t'ose step kill me!"

  "It wasn't the stairs; it was your pack," Honal said. "But now that you're here, we need to get the gate open. You have any idea what any of this stuff does?"

  Poertena took a look around, then another. He frowned.

  "I ... t'ink t'at big wheel in front of you is t'e capstan."

  "You think," Honal repeated. "And what is a capstan?"

  "It what you turn to open t'e gate," Poertena replied. "Only one problem."

  Honal looked at the wheel. It was, as far as he could tell, devoid of such minor things as handholds.

  "Where do we grab?" he asked.

  Poertena shoved himself off the wall and walked forward. There were embrasures on the northern side of the room, and he walked over and looked down through them. They were clearly for pouring stuff on attackers, but he felt quite certain that they functioned very well for disposing of unnecessary equipment, as well.

  "Took you a little bit to get in here, huh?" he asked. He turned back to the great drumlike wheel.

  "Yes, it did," the Vashin nobleman admitted.

  "Looks like t'ey had time to strip out the actual capstan," the Pinopan said, gazing at the capstan thoughtfully. It was nearly four meters across, clearly impossible to turn without a massive lever. On the other hand, there was a very convenient nut right at the top. "I jus' need a lever... ."

  "Big enough to move the world?" Roger asked, stepping through the door. "Time to get the gate up, Poertena. What are you waiting for? A metaphysical entity?"

  "No, You Highness," the Pinopan said, stooping to pick up a long baulk of wood. "A physical notion."

  The dowel was wide, nearly ten centimeters, and longer than Poertena—probably a replacement for an interrupting rod. The armorer contemplated it for a moment, then dropped his pack and dove in.

  "Okay, first you get out the metaphysical entity extractor," Roger agreed, and glanced at Rastar's cousin. "Honal, is this room secure?"

  "Well, we haven't been counterattacked," the cavalryman said. "Yet."

  "Hell, on t'is pocking planet, t'at t'e definition of secure," Poertena said as he extracted a roll of tape from the pack. "And of course I wasn't going to get a metaphysical extractor!"

  "Of course not," Roger said as he went down on one knee and picked up the dowel. "I should have known it would be space-tape. That, or drop cord. What else? And what, exactly, are we going to do with it?"

  "Well," Poertena replied, reaching into the top of the pack. "You know when we first met."

  Roger eyed the wrench warily, remembering a recalcitrant set of armor and the armorer who had gotten him out of it so quickly.

  "You're not going to hit me with that, right?"

  "Nope," Poertena said as he laid the haft of the wrench along the dowel and began to apply tape, "but we going to see if it can move t'e world!"

  * * *

  Doc Dobrescu shook his head as he ran the sterilizer over his hands. They had over two dozen wounded, but of the ones who might survive, Cord was by far the worst.

  "All I wanted to be was a pilot," he muttered, kneeling down beside the shaman. He looked across at the local female, who had shed her enveloping disguise somewhere along the way. "I'm going to need six arms for this, so you're elected. Hold out your hands."

  "What is this?" Pedi asked, holding out all four hands as the human ran a wand over them.

  "It scares away the demons," Dobrescu snapped. "It will reduce the infection—the gut-fever, you'd call it. He's hit bad, so it won't stop it entirely. But it will stop us from increasing the infection."

  "He'll die," Pedi said softly. "I can smell the gut. He will die. My benan. What can I say to my father?"

  "Screw your father," Dobrescu snarled. He tapped the female, who seemed about to drift off into la-la land, on the forehead. "Hey! Blondie, look at me!"

  Pedi snapped her head up to snarl at the medic, but froze at his expression.

  "We are not going to lose him!" Dobrescu barked, and thumped her on the forehead again. Harder. "We. Are. Not. Going. To. Lose. Him. Get that into your head, and get ready to help. Understand?"

  "What should I do?" Pedi asked.

  "Exactly what I say," Dobrescu answered quietly. He looked at the mess in Cord's abdomen and shook his head. "I'm a goddammed medic, not a xeno-surgeon."

  Cord was unconscious and breathing shallowly. Dobrescu had intubated the shaman and run in an oxygen line. He didn't have a decent anesthetic for the Mardukans, or a gas-passer, for that matter. But he'd given the shaman an injection of "sleepy juice," an extract of one of the most noxious of Marduk's fauna, the killerpillar. If he had the dosage right, Cord wouldn't feel a thing. And he might even wake up after the "operation."

  "Here we go," the warrant muttered, taking the spear by the shaft.

  He started by using a laser scalpel to elongate the opening in the abdominal wall. The shaman's muscles had bound around the spearhead, and it was necessary to open the hole outward to extract the weapon. He applied two auto-extractors that slowly spread the opening, pulling away each of the incised layers in turn.

  He finally had a good look at the damage, and it was pretty bad. The spear was lodged on the edge of the Mardukan equivalent of a liver, which was just about where humans kept one. There was a massive blood vessel just anterior of where the spear seemed to stop, and Dobrescu shook his head again at the shaman's luck. Another millimeter, a bad drop on the way back, and Cord would have bled out in a minute.

  The spearhead had also perforated the shaman's large, small, and middle-zone intestine—the latter a Mardukan feature without a human analog—and ruptured a secondary stomach. But the damage to each was minor, and it looked like he wouldn't have to resect anything.

  The worst problem was that a lesser blood vessel, a vein, had been punctured. If they didn't get it sewn up soon, the shaman would bleed to death anyway. The only reason he hadn't already was that the spear was holding the puncture partly closed.

  "I'm going to pull this out," Dobrescu said, pointing to the spearhead. "When I do, he's going to bleed like mad." He handed the Mardukan female two temp-clamps. "I'm going to point to where I want those while I'm working. You need to get them on fast, understand?"

 
"Understand," Pedi said, seriously. "On my honor."

  "Honor," the medic snorted. "I just wanted to fly shuttles. Was that too much to ask?"

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  For the first time in a career that had seen the term used more times than he cared to remember, Armand Pahner had just discovered what "having your back to the wall" really felt like.

  It was a much more powerful metaphor, under the circumstances, than he had previously believed. But that was because it was unpleasant to literally stand with his back to a closed gate while more and more enemies closed in on the humans and their allies. The Basik's Own was being pushed back into a broad "C" around the gate, and he knew that unless they got the gate opened—somehow—they were all going to be killed.

  And eaten.

  That was more than enough to convince any CO that he was in for a bad day. In Pahner's case, however, it was only one minor, additional item. Armand Pahner was widely known as a man who got steadily calmer as the situation got worse. Which was undoubtedly the reason his voice was very, very calm when Sergeant Major Kosutic turned up to report in.

  "And where," he asked her, "is Roger?"

  The same circumstances which produced monumental calmness in the captain produced a sort of manic humor in the sergeant major, and Kosutic swept off her helmet and cocked her head at him.

  "Feeling a bit tense, Captain?" she inquired, and Pahner gave her a thin smile.

  "Sergeant Major," he replied quietly, "I have known you for some years. And we need every gun we can muster. So I will not kill you. If... you tell me where Prince Roger is. Right Now."

  "Up there." Kosutic pointed upward as a sound of releasing locks echoed through the gate tower. "Opening the gates."

  "Great," Pahner said with the grumpiness reserved for the moments when he found himself with no option but to depend upon his rambunctious charge's talent for surviving one near-suicidal bit of mayhem or another without him. "Now if we can just break contact, we'll be home free."