by Paul Chafe
A paw on his shoulder, V'rli-Ztrak. She was bleeding badly from a slash that ran from her neck to her arm.
He reached out to her. “You have been…” She cut him off with a raised hand.
“The wound is nothing. Sraa-Vroo challenge-leapt and I killed him. He did not know the single combat form.” She paused. “The czrav are behind you, Zree-Rrit, every pride. We will take our destiny back from the Patriarchy.”
Pouncer found himself wordless. It was his moment of triumph, but he didn't feel triumphant. I have taken on a vast responsibility. He looked over to where Tskombe-kz'eerkti had joined Far Hunter and Trina in the center of the pride circle. I must not fail.
There followed a time of frenetic preparation. Agents were sent out to gain information on the state of the Citadel defenses, patrols dispatched to reconnoiter routes and lay up points for the march of the building army. Czrav manufacturing was sophisticated, but not geared for large scale production, and so necessary equipment had to be stolen from the enemy, mag armor for warriors and tuskvor both, and variable swords, grav belts, combat computers and more. Far Hunter traveled south with a raid, to stay behind and rendezvous with Black Saber for his mission to Churrt Pride and beyond. Pouncer found himself missing the presence of the Cherenkova-Captain, but Tskombe stepped almost unconsciously into that role, bringing his greater ground combat experience to bear. The list of details he carried in his head was tremendous, and every day the plan was refined. These kz'eerkti are formidable planners. Good planning was essential; there was very little time. Their attack was set for the next High Hunter's Moon, and already it had half waned from its last peak. I must strike while I can, while the czrav are behind me, while the Tzaatz do not suspect my full strength, while the Lesser Prides and the kzintzag still support us. The experienced warriors of Ztrak and Dziit and Mrrsel Prides became the leadership who trained the others in his tactics. He pushed his followers without mercy, himself harder still. Every day more prides arrived from the migration, and the increasingly crowded tuskvor needed to be managed and fed.
I have unleashed something I can no longer control. He was riding the storm, guiding it as he could, but helpless to prevent its advance. It would carry him to the Citadel, and to victory or death. He had no time to think about that, there was too much to accomplish first.
Honor demands vengeance.
— Creed of the Fanged God
The lighter floated out into the docking frame, thrusting gently onto a rendezvous trajectory. Overhead Kzinhome revolved and steadied against a backdrop of stars. Raarrgh-Captain let the pilot fly while he looked out the window at his new command. Once Patriarch's Talon had been a battleship, armed and armored for the Long Hunt. Now it was a stripped hulk, the only thing left her powerplants and her massive polarizers. The rest of her hull had been replaced with an open framework that held her new arsenal. It lacked the sophistication of the spinal-mount gamma ray laser and the secondary turrets and the racks of seeker missiles that had once made her a force to be reckoned with, but it was more lethal by far. Patriarch's Talon now carried launch racks full of simple tungsten spheres half the height of a kzin, wrapped in a thin shell of low albedo coating. With three-quarters of her hull cut away, the battleship's drives could push her at unheard-of accelerations, and when she was traveling so close to the speed of light that time dilation was the primary targeting factor, she would release those masses to travel on their own. They had no guidance, no warheads, no ability to locate and track a target, or even to maneuver. All they could do was travel as straight as a laser beam until they hit their target or missed it. For any space combat Raarrgh-Captain had ever fought they would be absolutely useless. Even moving at seven-eights-over-eight-squared times the speed of light, any ship not already crippled could elude them. In fact, the limitations on the ex-battleship's own sensors and guidance systems meant that they were likely to miss even a target dead in space, given the tremendous lead distance required to align her velocity vector on the target at such speeds. Patriarch's Talon had once been a weapon of power and precision. Now she couldn't hope to hit anything smaller than a planet.
Of course, that was exactly the plan, and a projectile of that much mass arriving at just under the speed of light would punch a crater to a planet's core. A pawful of them would sterilize a world, and it was that task, and that task alone, that Patriarch's Talon had been stripped for. In days his ship would be ready. It couldn't happen soon enough. There would be more suffering, more slaughtered kits by kz'eerkti before he could bring his weapon to bear. Every day brought new reports of colonies wiped out to the last kzin; even long established and well defended worlds were being invested and burned from orbit. The kz'eerkti had seemingly unlimited resources and their fleets were unstoppable, but they had not been in space long as a species, and they had a fatal weakness that the more established kzinti did not. Their colonies were few and lightly populated, all still at least partially reliant on their homeworld. Eliminate that and their campaign must inevitably collapse. Penetrating the heavy defenses of Sol system would be impossible for a ship, or even a fleet, but Patriarch's Talon no longer had to get close to strike.
And so Raarrgh-Captain would take his new warship deep into human space, to the borderland of Sol, and with alignment and timing precise to the edge of measurement he would accelerate to his hellish attack velocity and launch his war load at Earth. It was an unheard-of measure and it stood against the Traditions, against the Way of the Hunter, against honor itself to vandalize a living world like that. He would have been justified if he refused the mission, even justified if he renounced his fealty to Tzaatz Pride over such orders. He had considered both those options long and hard. It was true, as he had told Ftzaal-Tzaatz when the Black Priest had issued his orders, that the kzinti had never, in all their Conquests, used even conversion weapons on a world, let alone something like this. But it was also true, as Ftzaal had replied, that the kzinti had never before been faced not only with defeat but extermination. The kz'eerkti had shown no scruples in their attacks on kzinti-held worlds, assaults designed not for conquest but for annihilation. The monkey war was no longer about spoils and status, it was about species survival, and that changed everything.
Changed everything except the fact of final victory. That would remain a kzinti honor. His mouth relaxed into a fanged smile.
Cleopatra: Sink Rome, and their tongues rot that speak against us! A charge we bear i' the war, and, as the president of my kingdom, will appear there for a man. Speak not against it, I will not stay behind.
— William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act III, Scene VII
Ayla Cherenkova wasn't fast enough to run with the kzinti she commanded, so they carried her into battle instead. Her sedan chair was borne by eight kzinretti, her elite guard, each sworn to defend her to the death. It had room for her maps and planning charts, primitive tools long superseded by combat consoles, but they needed no power source. On a rack overhead was the heavy kzinti beamrifle that she was allowed to use because she was neither kzin nor slave, though if she ever had to use it, it would mean that her plans had failed badly. There was also room for Mind-Seer, her telepath, though he marched on his own except in battle, and beside the beamrifle were a series of small vials of sthondat lymph, should Mind-Seer ever need them in emergency. So far he hadn't; the czrav attacks had all gone perfectly, and his natural talent had been enough to know the minds of their enemies and pass Cherenkova's orders to her warriors.
And they were her warriors. Ayla smiled at that. Even among her volunteer kzinretti there had been some doubts at first, but now there was no more question about her ability to plan, to command and to lead. They would hit an installation, kill all the Tzaatz and take not just the ears but the bodies before vanishing into the night again. It was a tactic she had developed herself, aimed at striking fear into her enemies. The Tzaatz had a name for them now, pazpuweejw — the death shadows, the malevolent phantoms who haunted the ancient Kitten's Tales. She lik
ed that name; it meant that her tactics were working.
She stuck her head out the side of the chair as they came to a rise. “K'lakri, stop here.”
“As you command.”
The bearers put her down, and Cherenkova picked up her beamrifle and got out of the chair. With just her beltcomp she didn't have all the functionality of a combat console but she could move around. Mind-Seer came up beside her.
“I have news from the den, Cherenkova-Captain.”
“What is it?”
“The Tskombe-kz'eerkti has returned for you.”
“Quacy? He's back?” It took a moment for the news to sink in, and joy flooded her system. All at once she longed to hold him and be held, to touch him, at least to talk to him. Tears came to her eyes unbidden and she wiped them away. Time for this later. You have a battle to win. Still she couldn't help smiling. She was due to return to the den soon anyway. Her force had been fighting thrice around the Hunter's Moon and they needed a rest. Quacy! It will be good, so good to see him.
She turned to Mind-Seer. “Tell them I'm glad. Tell them, tell him I'll see him soon.”
Mind-Seer closed his eyes and muttered to himself as he reached out with his mind for that of Ferlitz-Telepath. Ayla watched him, somewhat in awe, as she always was, of the Telepath's Gift. He opened them a moment later. The message had been sent.
And now focus on the battle. She came up to the hill, slid up on her belly and raised her binoptics to scan the target. It was a rare-earth mine, worked by Kdatlyno, recently confiscated from the minor pride of Vaasc by the Tzaatz as punishment for withholding tribute. It was possible the Vaasc had really done that — the Lesser Prides were growing steadily more rebellious as the limits of Tzaatz control became clear — but it was more likely that Kchula-Tzaatz wanted the mine's output to feed his fleet construction program and its wealth for himself.
And ultimately it didn't matter. Another part of Cherenkova's overall campaign plan was that the Tzaatz themselves would be punished every time they tried to exert control in the northwestern prideholdings. With every heavy-handed move Kchula made, with every rapier-swift reprisal she mounted against them, the forces of the czrav gained credence with those who lived in the shadow of the Long Range. Vaasc Pride were not yet allies of Pouncer's, but soon they would be, as other Lesser Prides had already pledged fealty to the resurgent First-Son-of-Meerz-Rrit.
She scanned the scene. The mine head was in a valley half full of tailings, and it slanted deep into the planet's crust to ferret out the scant pockets of rare-earth metals. The Tzaatz had a heavy guard mounted. A few of them had taken to carrying beam weapons as well, a disturbing trend she could do little about. Pouncer refused to countenance the czrav taking similar steps, and though he allowed her to carry her own weapon for last-ditch self-defense, he probably would have rather she didn't.
She scanned the valley. There were a lot of Tzaatz, but guard duty was a boring and unrewarding task that quickly took the edge off even the best troops. More importantly, she couldn't see her pazpuweejw though she knew they were there, infiltrated into their attack positions like the shadows they took their name from.
Mind-Seer came up beside her, looking faraway as he reached out with his mind. “The attack is ready.”
Ayla nodded, not so much to acknowledge his words as to confirm them to herself. She felt the familiar pre-battle tension growing in her.
“Are we safe? Do the Tzaatz suspect?”
“Meat… the mating… distant home… The sentries are unaware…”
“Good. Tell V'levian to advance.”
Again Mind-Seer's eyes unfocused. “She moves now.”
Ayla swung her binoptics to focus on the closest Tzaatz guardpost, three of them on raider rapsari at the access road that led to the mine complex. For a moment there was nothing, and then she saw a blur of motion, and the guards and their beasts were down.
“Tell M'telv to go.”
“Yes…” His eyes closed briefly, then shot open. “There are hunters! Coming fast!”
“Alert!” It was K'lakri, running up the slope at the same instant. “The Tzaatz are coming.” Ayla whirled around to see her guard commander pointing skyward. There was a high pitched whine, growing rapidly louder… “Gravcars!” Ayla shouted. “Back to the rally point.” A swarm of assault vehicles were dropping out of the sky onto their position.
Too close for coincidence. It took Ayla half a second to assess the situation. “They know we're here. Mind-Seer, order the attack aborted, V'levian and M'telv are to withdraw to the rally point under their own command. K'lakri, we're withdrawing now. They might not have us spotted yet.”
“As you command.” K'lakri flashed tail signals to her warriors while Ayla scrambled back to her sedan chair, but by the time they got there it was too late. The first three gravcars slammed down not a hundred meters away, Tzaatz pouring down the ramps. There were no rapsari, at least, and at K'lakri's order her pazpuweejw elite guard screamed and leapt as the enemy closed, carving left and right with variable swords. They weren't as strong as males, but they were faster. Their sex helped; the Tzaatz were slow to understand that the females were attacking them, and they cut down half the Tzaatz in under a minute. She grabbed her beamrifle and looked for targets.
But already the weapons on the cars that hadn't landed were firing as they made a low pass, pulled up and swung around to come back down. Netguns! Four of her bodyguard were caught and struggling, the rest diving for cover, though there was little enough on the rocky slope. Mind-Seer drew his own variable sword and leapt for a Tzaatz warrior. None of them carried weapons that could engage the cars; all they could do was fall back. Another wave of assault vehicles dropped out of the sky, slamming down in the gravel on the hill. Ayla ran for a small ravine, slid down into it in a shower of stones. Her force needed its commander, and for that she had to survive. She looked around wildly for Mind-Seer but couldn't see him, or anyone. Heart thumping wildly, she belly crawled under a low bush. Hopefully the Tzaatz wouldn't be looking for a human. If they found her they might think her a slave. That would be a good thing, as long as they didn't choose to eat her right then and there. She looked at the beamrifle in her hand. They might not eat her, if they didn't find her with a weapon. But I won't abandon my weapon, and I won't pretend to be a slave to buy my own safety. She would hide, but if they came for her she would shoot her way out or die trying. Minutes dragged by like hours, and her breathing stabilized. She could hear the Tzaatz moving about on the hilltop, snarling back and forth as they secured the area. They seemed to have missed her little gully, but there would be scent trail, and they might have some of their odious rapsar sniffers with them. She pictured the terrain and assessed options. She needed to get a plan together to get her captured warriors back.
Screams of rage and pain came from the hillcrest, two voices, too inarticulate for her to make out the words, but she understood what was happening. Her pazpuweejw were being interrogated. Anger swelled through her and she gripped her beamrifle. She had her rescue plan, and it was right here, right now. She scrambled up the slope she had slid down, came face to face with a surprised Tzaatz and pulled the trigger. His mag armor was depowered and his chest exploded as the beam hit him. She dropped behind his still steaming corpse for cover and started picking targets, pulling the trigger and moving on. For about fifteen seconds she had the advantage with firepower and confusion on her side, and then they spotted her. The Tzaatz warriors weren't cowards, and they screamed and leapt without regard for their own safety. She snapped the weapon to multifire and swept it across her front, hitting at least three in mid leap, sending the rest diving for cover amid a spray of shrapnel from rocks exploded by beams that missed. She saw one of her pazpuweejw claw her way out of a net and move to free another. A Tzaatz leapt to stop them and she snapped off a shot, catching him in the face. The body dropped, headless, and the two kzinretti vanished over the hillcrest. They will free the others while I cover them, and the Kzinrette Secret
will be safe. There was silence while she watched, and again the minutes dragged, then rock clicked on rock to her left flank. She spun, saw a flash of movement and fired, catching a Tzaatz in midleap. His mag armor was on, but her weapon was still on multifire and the beams shredded him. She whirled back to cover her front again but nothing else was moving. Impasse. She became aware of pain, looked down to see that the beamrifle's charge pack had burned a hole in her shirt sleeve and sizzled the skin beneath. The indicator was way down. She'd gone through over half a charge already.
And I have to move or they'll get me from both flanks next time. If they managed that the game would be over. Had all her captured warriors escaped? A killscream sounded from above and cut off with a gurgle. That suggested that they had, and the Tzaatz were paying in blood to follow them. It was time to leave. Carefully she slid back down the ravine, then moved across the slope under the cover of some low shrubs, hoping to work her way back up. A gravcar whined over, searching, and she jerked her weapon up to fire. It hadn't spotted her, a miracle on the sparse terrain, and she let it pass. A beamrifle would do little to a combat vehicle anyway. She was running out of options. If she'd been smart she would have headed back for the rally point, and she listened for the voice in her mind that would be Mind-Seer, feeding her information, but there was nothing. Is he even alive? An unanswerable question. More rock on rock. She swung the rifle again, but there was nothing there. Think fast, monkey. They would stalk her, but as long as she didn't let them box her in she'd have the initiative. For that she had to keep moving. So that was the plan, fire, fall back, wear them down. Keep to the bushes where they'd have trouble picking her up from the air. They might get her in the end, but she'd make them pay.
