Starfist: Kingdom's Fury

by David Sherman

  A Leader ran behind his Fighters, harshly barking at them, exhorting them to run faster—the shuttles wouldn’t wait long, and they had to get to them before they lifted off. Run, run, run, he barked, faster, faster, faster. The Fighters ran as fast as they could through thigh-deep water. When the Leader stopped barking, only one Fighter, who had a genetic defect that afforded him more intelligence than all other Fighters, wondered why. He turned his head to investigate and his eyes bugged at the sight that met them: a mob of the local creatures, the semisentients the True People used as slave animals, milled among the Fighters behind him. The creatures knocked the Fighters and Leaders down and stabbed them as they foundered in the water! The river flowed red with the blood of Fighters and Leaders.

  The Fighter pushed himself harder than any Leader or Master had ever pushed him, and got ahead of his fellow Fighters just before they reached the far bank. He barked commands at them—stop, turn around, and fight! The other Fighters hesitated; he was a Fighter like them, not a Leader. But he barked orders as a Leader or even a Master might bark them, so they stopped and turned around to see the unthinkable. At the command of the Fighter who gave orders like a Leader, the other Fighters unslung nozzles and pointed them at the creatures who were starting to charge toward them. The Fighter barked FIRE! and they sprayed their greenish fluid at the charging creatures. Several of the creatures fell, screaming in agony, pawing at the acid that ate into their flesh. The others dove into the water and swam away from the streams of acid.

  Then the crack-sizzle of Earthmen Marine forever guns came from their left flank. The Fighter with the genetic defect barked more orders, and the Fighters with him fled from the forever guns, racing to catch up with the others. He didn’t go with them. Instead he dove into the shallow channel and swam to the point of the island, where he had seen bodies of Fighters and Leaders sprawled dead on the ground. He crawled to shore, barely below the sight of the Earthmen Marines on the bank. The bodies lay close to each other, so he didn’t need to waste any time pulling them together. He lay near one and took the fire maker that months earlier he’d taken from the corpse of a Leader on the Earthman world called Kingdom. He used it to flame the body. Moving quickly, he touched fire to more bodies. The heat of the flames nearly touched him off, though he rolled away each time. Satisfied that all were burned or would burn, he dropped the tanks from his back and dove into the river. Underwater, he swam rapidly upstream for a short distance before climbing the bank. As he went he saw a few of the local creatures watching him, but none approached.

  On land again, the inexplicitly intelligent Fighter raced through the forest toward where he heard the crack-sizzle of Earthmen Marine forever guns firing at the soldiers of the True People.

  Lance Corporal Schultz only hesitated an instant when he saw the headless centaurs spearing the Skinks. Other Skinks had already made the bank, and he shifted aim and fired at them. His first bolt missed, his second was met by the flash of a flaring Skink. Corporals Kerr and Doyle fired almost as soon as he did, then the rest of second squad caught up, along with the gun attached to them, and they all fired into the forest. Lights flashed among the trees where Skinks flared. The flashes had stopped by the time first squad caught up.

  “Third herd, MOVE!” Lieutenant Rokmonov roared on the all-hands circuit. Third platoon scrambled through the forest in pursuit of the Skinks, firing as they went. Occasional flashes showed they were hitting the Skinks.

  “What?” Corporal Claypoole screamed when he looked up into the trees and saw a roughly man-size creature skittering through the branches five or six meters above. He shook his head and looked again, using his light-gatherer and magnifier shields. The—The thing undulated on six legs and didn’t have a head! No, it wasn’t running along the branches on six legs—one limb ended in a hand, and that hand held a spear! He dropped his infra into place—the thing showed as brightly as a man, not dim like a Skink. In his peripheral vision he saw MacIlargie raise his blaster.

  “Stop!” he shouted at MacIlargie. “It’s not a Skink!”

  “What is it?” MacIlargie shouted back, his quavering voice indicating how shaken he was by the strange creature.

  “I don’t know, but I think it’s chasing the Skinks.”

  The Marines followed, but the Skinks were more agile in the drenched forest. Before the Marines came in sight of the clearing made by the missiles, they heard the roar of the shuttles launching.

  “Third platoon, hold up,” Captain Conorado ordered. “First and second platoons, link with third.”

  It took another five minutes for Company L to link up and form a defensive position. During that time, Lieutenant Rokmonov joined third platoon’s second squad in looking at the strange sight in front of them.

  “Skipper,” Rokmonov said on the company command circuit, “I think you should take a look at this.”

  A dozen creatures stood in the trees ten or so meters ahead of third platoon. They stood on roots and branches, grasped branches with crudely formed mid-limb paws, gripped with a hand on a forelimb, held spears in their free hands. Their bodies folded upward at the joint of the mid-limbs, similar to the centaurs of ancient myth. They didn’t have heads.

  “My God,” Conorado whispered.

  “What are they?”

  “I don’t know. There wasn’t anything about tool users in the BHHEI reports on this planet.”

  “They have eyestalks sticking out of their shoulders,” Rokmonov said softly.

  “Yes.” As he watched, one of the headless creatures retracted its eyestalks and extended a second pair from alongside the snout that projected forward from between its shoulders.

  “They look almost like they can see us.”

  “Yes,” Conorado agreed. He raised all shields and watched as the centauroids focused on his face. He turned his head to Rokmonov. “They don’t see us,” he said. “They see the rain running over us.”

  “We’re invisible men.”

  “More likely invisible monsters. Everybody,” he said on the third platoon all-hands circuit, “raise shields. Let them see your faces. Don’t point any weapons at them.”

  One of the creatures swiveled his eyestalks along the line of Marines; his gaze seemed to pause at each of them. Then he dropped down out of the tree he was in and lowered his forebody with his hands supporting his weight. When his muzzle almost touched the mud, he extended his dorsal eyestalks at the Marines and spoke. His voice came in grunts, clicks, and whistles.

  “I wonder what he’s saying?” Rokmonov murmured.

  “He’s probably thanking us for helping to drive the Skinks away.”

  The creature pushed himself back up and climbed into the tree. He grunted, clicked, and whistled to his companions, then all of them clambered through the trees to the shallows and headed for the island. Conorado alerted Kilo Company.

  Intensely curious, Claypoole climbed a tree to watch. The creatures ignored the Kilo Company Marines, who were still at the downstream end of the island, and went straight to a long shed, which they broke into.

  “What are they doing there, Rock?” Conorado asked.

  “Holy . . . They’re leading more creatures out of the shed. Jesus Mohammed, they look sick. Some of them can’t walk by themselves. The guys who chased the Skinks, they’re carrying a couple of the others.” He paused to see what the creatures would do next. “They’re heading for the river and getting in. I lost them, they’re underwater. No, wait, some of them are bobbing to the surface. It looks like some of the healthy ones are holding sick ones up where they can breathe. They’re at the other side now, getting out of the water.” He looked down at his company commander.

  “Skipper, remember what you did on Avionia? I think we just did the same thing here.” On Avionia, Conorado had freed the sentient aliens who were being held as research animals by a senior scientist.

  Conorado nodded, he believed he was right about the centauroid thanking the Marines for helping drive the Skinks away—it looked
like the Skinks had been using some of them as slaves. That was confirmed when the Marines searched the camp.

  The shuttles docked in the amphibious barge-type starship and the Skinks filed off, to be led to the troop holds by crew members. An Over Master stood in the entrance to the passageway from the docking bay and studied the passing Fighters. He saw one without a weapon and stopped him.

  The Over Master stared at the Fighter for a time. “You’re the one,” he said.

  The Fighter said nothing. He stood, head bowed, before the Over Master. He wondered if he should dread this encounter. Losing a weapon in combat was sometimes punished severely.

  “Your unit’s Leader was killed. Instead of continuing to follow his last order, you saw the threat from behind and assumed a Leader’s position. You gave new orders to the other Fighters in your unit and fought off the slaves who were attacking. Then you fired our dead so their helixes would not be left for the Earthmen Marines to discover.”

  “I am the one,” the Fighter said, his head bowed.

  “I remember you. You did a similar thing sometime back on the Earthman planet, assumed a Leader’s position when your Leader was killed.”

  The Fighter said nothing, just stood with his head bowed. If he was ever going to be promoted to Leader, this was his best chance.

  “Your unit should have been destroyed each time after your Leader was killed. Instead, this time, you led your unit in a fight that saved our withdrawal and brought your unit here. Before, you accomplished a part of our mission that would not have been accomplished had you not assumed a position above yourself, one for which you were not bred.”

  The Fighter knew these things. He was patient. The Over Master would decide what to do when he was ready—that was the way of Over Masters.

  “Look at me and tell me if you are the one.”

  The Fighter looked at the Over Master. “I am the one.”

  The Over Master stared at the Fighter. In all his years of service to the Emperor, he could not think of another instance of a Fighter assuming a Leader’s position on his own initiative. Fighters were not supposed to give orders, they were bred to obey orders. He should kill the Fighter now, before he usurped authority again. But the campaign had cost the lives of too many Leaders and Masters of all ranks. It would take a great deal of time to train enough new Leaders, and train and promote new Masters of all ranks.

  “You know who I am?”

  “Yes, Over Master.”

  “When the ship is safely away from here in nether-space, come to my quarters. When you leave my quarters, you will no longer be a Fighter, you will be a Leader.”

  The Fighter was elated. “I will,” he said, and bowed lower.

  “We shall see.” Fighters were not allowed in the area of the ship where Over Masters were quartered. If this Fighter could manage to reach his quarters without being detained and executed, he deserved to become a Leader.

  The Skinks did not return to the Kingdom of Yahweh and His Saints and Their Apostles. The Marines, two weeks later, did. From there they headed back to Thorsfinni’s World and Camp Ellis.

  Ambassador Jayben Spears was ecstatic about the news of the headless centauroids.

  “I’ll get this off in a diplomatic pouch immediately,” he crowed to Brigadier Sturgeon. It’s about time those hidebound bureaucrats at Behind got a thumb in their eye!”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Senior Stormleader Errik Romer had been a soldier most of his life. He had served in the armed forces of several member worlds of the Confederation and was widely known as a highly respected military professional. His many decorations for bravery under fire attested to that. At loose ends between wars, and hankering after a challenging position that would give him an opportunity to exercise the full range of his military talents—he was an excellent administrator and logistician, in addition to his proven competence on the battlefield—he had accepted Dominic de Tomas’s offer to help him organize what became known as the Special Group on Kingdom.

  De Tomas’s success with the Special Group was due in large part to Romer’s organizing and administrative abilities. It was he who oversaw the recruitment process so that the SG obtained only the most highly qualified individuals, and it was under Romer’s guidance that the SG’s training program evolved into a mechanism for totally successful indoctrination of SG recruits.

  The members of the Special Group and the Lifeguards seldom fraternized with the civilian population. Their police and security duties prescribed that they remain aloof from the people they might have to arrest and execute. And so, when off duty, they spent their leisure hours engaged in sports and physical conditioning or in their private service clubs. At Wayvelsberg, the Black Order Bistro served the leisure-time needs of the officers. Romer spent most of his time there, often staying until the early morning hours, drinking, singing, and playing cards with the other officers.

  No one outside the Special Group was allowed in the place, and in keeping with de Tomas’s deep-seated but secret animosity toward clerics and organized religion in general, the Black Order Bistro was decorated exclusively with murals of famous battles and the portraits of famous generals. Over the door, inscribed in burnished gold lettering, were the words: “Struggle Makes You Free,” and over the bar, “As We Grow Pitiless and Hard in the Struggle for Power, We Also Grow Pitiless and Hard in the Struggle for the Preservation of Our Race—Adolf Hitler.”

  Group singing was a common pastime in the bistro, especially the signature song of the Special Group, “When All Others Are Unfaithful, We Shall Remain Loyal,” and “Raise the Flag!”

  RAISE THE FLAG! OUR RANKS ARE TIGHTLY CLOSED!

  RAISE THE FLAG! THE TRAITORS ARE EXPOSED!

  THE STORM MEN MARCH WITH QUIET, STEADY TREAD,

  WE MARCH AS ONE, THE LIVING AND THE DEAD.

  Dominic has never been a soldier,” Romer had remarked one night, relaxing with his lieutenants, called stormleaders, or simply “leaders.” “Goddamn chicken farmer,” he muttered. “Would’ve failed at that if his mom hadn’t bought him out,” he added with a snort. “And this,” he gestured wildly with one hand, “is not soldiering! Pfagh! I’m the only real soldier here!”

  At those informal gatherings, Romer always referred to de Tomas by his first name, which he never would dream of doing in person. Behind his back Romer’s officers called him “Six-Bottle Romie,” because his capacity for Wanderjahrian vintages on these occasions extended to the consumption of six bottles before he had to be led off to his quarters. That night, he had been well into his fifth. “I have plans, boys,” he went on, noisily wiping his moist lips with the hairy back of a hand, “and I don’t mean commanding the group for the rest of my days either.” He winked broadly at the young officers sitting around his table. “No!” He pounded the table loudly, startling them. “Dominic’s going to come out on top of these goddamn godfreak fanatics, you see, and when he does—” He paused and leered drunkenly at the young men. “I will take command of the goddamned Army of God!” He nodded gravely, as if the decision had already been made.

  Romer put his arm around the young man sitting to his right and hugged him in the effusive manner of drunks. “Ain’t that right, Mikey?” he rumbled. “We are goin’ places, m’boy. You stick with ol’ Romie,” he took in the others with an unsteady wave of his hand, “and you’ll all go with me.”

  “Are you ready, Herten?” Dominic de Tomas asked Overstorm Leader Herten Gorman, assistant commander of his Lifeguard Battalion.

  “Yes, my leader.” Gorman bowed from the waist.

  De Tomas had formed the Lifeguards as a special unit under his personal command. Like the SG, they swore total allegiance to de Tomas, but unlike the SG, which often moved far afield in its police duties and was directly commanded on those occasions by Senior Stormleader Romer, the Lifeguards remained always within de Tomas’s immediate control.

  “You must strike swiftly and mercilessly. I want the traitors killed wit
h as little fuss and publicity as possible. Get them all before the sun rises. Here is the list. He handed the Overstorm Leader a list of about thirty names, all ranking members of the Special Group.

  Herten took the list. He knew all of them. He had once been an Overstormer, a rank equivalent to captain, in the Special Group, before de Tomas had selected him for promotion to the grade of Overstorm Leader, the equivalent of lieutenant colonel, and the position of assistant commander of his bodyguard, the elite of the elite.

  “I want Romer brought alive here to Wayvelsberg, Herten.”

  De Tomas had decided that it was time to clean house, to move against the sects when the off-worlder Marines were gone and the Army of God was preoccupied with mopping up the alien invaders.

  An insistent pounding on his door awakened Romer.

  “I’ll get it,” Romer’s personal bodyguard said.

  Romer stretched. It was just past midnight. He heard loud voices in the entryway and then a cry of pain and heavy boots stomping up the staircase outside his bedroom. He snatched his sidearm from a holster fitted to his side of the bed and leveled the muzzle at the doorway, which was suddenly filled by the figure of Herten Gorman. He lowered the pistol but did not reholster it.

  “Good morning, Overstorm Leader.” Gorman bowed. Behind him, Romer saw several shooters of the Lifeguards crowded in the hallway.

  “Good morning to you, Overstorm Leader. What is the meaning of this intrusion?”

  Gorman eyed the pistol in Romer’s hand. “No need for that,” he said, nodding at the gun. “Dean de Tomas requests your presence at Wayvelsberg, sir, and I have come to escort you there.”

  “At this hour? With armed guards? De Tomas could have called me personally if he wanted to see me.” He raised the pistol.

  A stormer behind Gorman fired. The blast hit Romer’s right arm and sent the pistol flying. Before he could even react to the trauma of the injury, Gorman and his men were on him.