by Paul Chafe
He was awakened by Trina shaking him. “Hey! They've started fighting.”
He rolled off the prrstet. War seemed was no different from peace; the rumble of the herd went on unchanged. But that will change soon. He went back to the combat console, where Pouncer was conferring with Battle Captain.
Pouncer looked up. “The scouts found a Tzaatz rapsar patrol. I tasked V'rli with eliminating it.”
“Results?”
“We will know soon.”
Tskombe studied the display. The advance of the czrav army was a red tide across the map, the last elements still pouring through the passes of the Long Range, the lead elements spreading out into a broad frontal advance. A blue icon marked the Tzaatz patrol, no doubt from the garrison at Skragga Pride's ancestral estate. Advance elements of Ztrak Pride were already assigned to deal with that garrison, but now they were chasing down the patrol.
“I'm getting code bursts.” Battle Captain's voice was tight. “They don't seem to be getting an answer.”
“Hrrr. We need our surprise to last longer.”
Ferlitz-Telepath, still deep in the mind-trance, stirred. “Blood… they leap…” After a moment his eyes flickered open. “V'rli reports success. We have no losses.”
There was a collective release of tension. The first obstacle is clear. Tskombe knew better than to relax. We were lucky. It will get harder. He looked to Trina, who seemed to be fascinated by the entire venture. Will her luck keep her safe? He no longer doubted she had it, he only wondered if it would last.
His beltcomp said an hour had passed when Pouncer ordered the main force to stop. V'rli's unit advanced by itself to take on the Tzaatz garrison that stood guard over Skragga Pride. Ferlitz-Telepath watched the battle through the minds of the combatants, and again he shared the images with Tskombe. Two Tzaatz guards on rapsar raiders, bored and tired, the rest of the garrison asleep. Suddenly a huge shape looms from the darkness, a tuskvor, the ground shaking beneath its footfalls. Sudden fear, the rapsari bucking and turning to run, a huge head swinging down, tusks spreading gore, and the herd moves through, pop-domes crushed underfoot, fear and confusion, dark shapes with variable swords dropping from the flanks of the tuskvor to slice out the lifeblood of anything they find, a rapsar sniffer running in panic, a huge foot coming down, and angry bellows echoing from the distant valley walls.
That quickly it was over. Victory in the darkness; the Tzaatz hadn't known what hit them.
“I have an uplink signal.” Battle Captain's words were clipped.
“What? Where?” Pouncer scanned the combat display. A blue icon appeared, deeper into Skragga Pride territory.
Tskombe shook his head. “The scouts missed an outpost.”
Pouncer's tail lashed. “Battle Captain, jam the signal. Ferlitz, relay that to V'rli. Have her destroy it at once.”
Battle Captain's paws flew over his board, isolating the signal for jamming. “There is a downlink.” He paused while he checked readouts. “Our surprise advantage is gone.”
“We knew we'd lose it soon.” Still, Tskombe was disappointed. They had a long way to go, and now the Tzaatz would have days to prepare their defenses. Ztrak Pride closed on the previously unknown enemy and destroyed them too, and he dared hope that the message from the doomed outpost might get lost between the orbital fortress and the Citadel. Pouncer ordered the advance resumed as the first rays of dawn shone over the eastern horizon. Days blend into each other in combat, I'd forgotten that. How many other lessons would he have to learn anew? Hopefully not many. And none critical. He couldn't resist asking Ferlitz how Ayla was again, though he knew the Tzaatz would not execute her, if that's what they were going to do, until the last possible moment. He got the same answer as before. She's alive, that's all that matters.
In the early light of dawn the army was an impressive sight, the herd spread out from horizon to horizon in battle array. In the high forest the trees were taller than the tuskvor and it had been impossible to gain a sense of the immensity of this vast, living fleet. C'mell and Swift-Claw traded places on the tiller bar. Night-Prowler prepared dried meat while Z'slee checked her weapon yet another time. Life on their cramped, moving world continued unaffected by the violence and death at the front of the formation, kilometers in front of them. Our turn will come soon enough.
The sun was barely up when the first gravcar came over. It came fast and high, well out of range of any hand weapons. It zoomed over the length and breadth of the herd and then vanished again without slowing down. At least they didn't start shooting. Tskombe had little trust in the restraint of the Tzaatz, if only because he had little himself. If I saw this herd coming toward me I would use every weapon I could lay hands on.
Battle Captain immediately started reporting crypted transmissions from the gravcar and identifying enemy positions by their answers. The orbital fortresses started downlinking, probably sending imagery.
Tskombe smiled, imagining the consternation in the Patriarch's Tower. “Jammers to full,” he ordered. Kchula-Tzaatz must have known something was coming. It seemed unlikely that he could have understood the scale until he saw it. The question now is, what will the response be?
The response wasn't long in coming. A phalanx of gravcars came in low and fast. As they swept over arrows rained from their back compartments, fired by Tzaatz warriors who crouched low to take advantage of the cover of their sides. Tskombe held his breath as they swooped in and ducked behind the tsvasztet's side. He needn't have bothered; the gravcars were moving too fast for effective shooting and all the arrows went wide.
The Tzaatz learned from that and the next pass was slower, the fire more accurate, but the czrav were prepared, and heavy ballista rounds arced into the air from the back of tsvasztet specially modified to carry them. It seemed a waste of effort — no weapon driven by spring tension could throw a projectile hard enough to penetrate cerametal — but to his surprise one of the gravcars was suddenly yanked from the air, as though an invisible giant had swatted it down.
“Nets.” Pouncer had followed his gaze. “Monomolecular filament nets trailing the leader rounds. The other ends are attached to boulders.”
As Tskombe watched, another ballista fired and caught a car, and this time he could see the heavy stones yanked hard from the back of the tsvasztet, though he still couldn't see the monofilament. The sudden load was too much for the gravcar's polarizers and it pitched forward, its own momentum driving it into the ground. It tumbled and broke up on impact, but warriors from the next tuskvor in line still leapt to the ground to see what they could kill.
The gravcars circled wide after that, but staying out of ballista range put them out of effective arrow range as well. It was a standoff.
“It was the Cherenkova-Captain's idea.” Pouncer's ears were up and forward as he watched the duel, and Tskombe noticed anew that half of the left one was missing. He is battle-scarred. Tskombe looked forward, past where C'mell was again steering their tuskvor. The gravcars flew off in that direction. So far so good, and the Tzaatz aren't using energy weapons.
Dziit Pride overran another Tzaatz garrison later that day with little more effort than it had taken Ztrak Pride the previous night. Black Saber downlinked imagery showing their route. It was surprisingly empty of resistance, but that anomaly was explained when he sent down the area around the Citadel. The Tzaatz had decided to make their stand there, using the natural defenses of the river backed by the fortress. The imagery was full of ranked assault rapsari, some almost the size of tuskvor. The difficult wooded areas were patrolled by raiders and packs of the vicious harriers. So the battle will be joined there. Darkness fell with little further action, though gravcars continued to circle and harass them. The night grew cold beneath ice-hard stars and he tried unsuccessfully to sleep on the steadily rocking prrstet. He could hear Pouncer working with Ferlitz to identify the thoughts of enemy commanders. There was consternation and even fear among the Tzaatz, but mostly there was confidence, and Tskombe had the uneasy
realization that the Tzaatz telepaths would also be searching out his mind to learn Pouncer's battle plans. The czrav telepaths back in the dens should have been blocking his thoughts, but he called up Beethoven's Sixth Symphony in his mind anyway. It would help him relax and make it hard for the enemy to learn the czrav strategy in case the blocking didn't work.
From Ferlitz they learned that Ftzaal-Tzaatz had taken personal command of the battle. The knowledge was the source of the confidence with which the Tzaatz awaited the attackers, but by the time sleep finally claimed Tskombe, Ferlitz hadn't managed to read the Black Priest's thoughts. A judicious dose of sthondat extract had failed to help, though it had put Ferlitz deeply into the mind-trance. Morning arrived, seemingly an eyeblink later. Dawn was bloodred as 61 Ursae Majoris climbed over the eastern horizon, and there was something else, a scent in the air like wood smoke. Instinctively his hand went to his side where his respirator should have been hanging. A long forgotten voice from the Infantry School spoke in his head. In the event of a gas attack you will have nine seconds to don the respirator. The inhaled dose of cycloserasine necessary to kill a warm blooded being was so low you could count the molecules individually, and if you could actually smell its warm, inviting odor you would be dead before your next breath if you hadn't already injected the antidote. What do the rules of honor say about war gases? He held his breath but he wasn't wearing UN battle armor and he had no respirator and he recognized the ridiculousness of an act that might extend his life another forty seconds. The herd surged forward indifferently and no one else on the tsvasztet died in twitching convulsions. He breathed out and breathed in, and another red glow beyond dawn on the horizon warned of the true nature of the threat. The grasslands were burning ahead of them. The Tzaatz had set the savannah on fire to disrupt the herd.
“Even now the Tzaatz tread the edge of honor.” Pouncer had come up beside him, leaning forward to assess the red glow. It stretched across the horizon, reflected from the clouds overhead.
“As long as they don't cross the line.” Tskombe paused. “How are we going to deal with that?”
“Hrrr. Ferlitz-Telepath has known the minds of our route scouts. There are places the fire has died down. Tuskvor can cross fire, if it is not too serious.”
“No.” Tskombe shook his head. “The Tzaatz will use lasers from orbit to restart the fire in our path, no matter which path we take.”
“What do you suggest then?”
“Counterburning. We start our own fires along the route we want, burn everything we can, and advance over the ashes.” Tskombe looked to the sky. “Black Saber can do that for us.” He paused, realizing the dangers inherent in his strategy. “And then we pray for rain.”
Pouncer turned a paw over, considering. “I concur.” He turned to Battle Captain. “You heard?”
“Yes, sire.”
“Give the order to Black Saber. We remain on the primary route.”
“As you command.” Battle Captain keyed his console and spoke into it, then looked up. “Sire? Black Saber is targeting now. Night Pilot sends a message.”
Pouncer fanned his ears up. “What is it.”
“Scoutships falling in from the singularity. The kz'eerkti fleet has arrived.”
“Hrrr.” He traded a glance with Tskombe. “We may yet die at the moment of victory.”
“I can talk to them, get them to wait until we can finish our battle. They might even land troops to support us.”
“No!” Pouncer slashed his claws in the air. “This is skalazaal. I will not give the Tzaatz excuse to accuse me of using a prey species in battle. You may talk to them after we win, not before.”
Tskombe looked at him. Prey species… He let the point go, mentally calculating drop time from the singularity's edge. We'll only get one chance to win. After that the human fleet would attack in their now well rehearsed pattern, and the globe shaking detonations of conversion warheads would erase civilization on Kzinhome. And I will die, and Ayla… That was a thought he didn't want to think.
A brilliant blue-green line stabbed out of the sky ahead of them, the colors almost too pure to be real, the visible signature of an invisible gamma ray laser beam fired from orbit, powerful enough to strip the electrons from the oxygen and nitrogen in its path to produce the ionization glow. Dirt fountained where the beam touched the ground, ringed by flame and followed half a second later by a thunderclap report as the superheated column of ions shocked the quiet air around it. Tskombe blinked, the dazzling afterimage of the laser burned onto his retina. For an instant he thought Night Pilot had misunderstood and Black Saber was firing on them, but no mere freighter could mount weapons that could hit like that from orbit. The beams were the main armament of an orbital fortress. The Tzaatz had grown impatient. The dry savannah crackled as the fire took hold and the flames rose up. More beams stabbed downward and the flames grew and merged, until they were a wall of fire ten meters high. He swallowed hard. A direct hit by one of those beams would vaporize a tuskvor, and the Tzaatz could, if they chose, drag their target lines through the vast herd as easily as a child could fingerpaint. Thick black smoke swirled up, choking him and stinging his eyes, and their tuskvor bellowed. Others answered it throughout the herd as C'mell struggled with the tiller bar and snarled a stream of unintelligible curses as she tried to keep the beast on course. The Tzaatz might have hoped to stop the herd with the vast grass fires set ahead of its advance; now they were trying to destroy it outright by setting the fires all around them. They're getting closer to the edge of honor. We have them scared. That was a less reassuring thought than it might have been.
More beams stabbed down and the fires grew around them. Any other herd animal would have panicked and stampeded, but the Tzaatz hadn't reckoned with the power of the tuskvor's migration instinct. The heat grew intense, even high up on the tsvasztet, but the advance continued, the booming bellows of the herd rising up over the crackle of flame. Their own tuskvor snorted and bucked as it charged through a wall of flame that roared up in front of them like a living thing bent on consuming them whole. Tskombe threw himself flat on the floor of the tsvasztet and held his breath while flame licked around their sides, and then they were through. C'mell, her fur singed black in patches, was still hanging on to the tiller bar while Pouncer, Z'slee and Swift-Claw had leapt to extinguish half a dozen minor fires that had started on the tsvasztet itself. Something big crashed into the platform and it jolted sideways, almost spilling him to the burning ground. Another tuskvor, blinded by flames and bellowing in pain, had collided with theirs. The tsvasztet on its back was an inferno, and as he watched a kzin leapt from it, his fur burning hard enough to turn him into a living fireball. The kzin landed hard, and badly, rolling and screaming in pain, an unearthly wail that penetrated straight to Tskombe's hindbrain. The injured tuskvor lurched back the other way and fell sideways, crushing the critically wounded warrior and cutting off the sound. The massive beast thrashed its limbs, bellowing as the fire swept around it, but it wasn't going to be getting up. Tskombe grabbed the rail of the tsvasztet and looked around, breathed out in relief to see the surging armada emerge from the smoke and flames, despite the new gaps in the ranks.
He suddenly became aware of an absence. Trina! He looked around frantically and didn't see her. Her luck has failed. He cursed himself for relying on such an ephemeral shield as statistical improbability, his throat tightening in response to feelings he couldn't afford to show in battle.
Two hands, and she was clambering over the edge of the travel platform. His eyes met hers, traveled over the edge to where a burned-through securing line was retied. If she hadn't done that, the whole platform might have slid off the tuskvor's back on the next severe jolt. His gaze went back to hers, gratitude expressed with a glance. On the horizon ahead more flames glowed as the counter fires set by Black Saber's beams surged against the firestorm ignited by the Tzaatz. A vast wall of smoke stretched up into the sky, the convection triggering cumulus clouds which built higher and
higher as they rode inexorably toward a scene that looked like some medieval version of the gates of hell. The beam strikes from heaven stopped as suddenly as they had begun.
“Tell Vlorz Pride to shift to the northern route. They will come down on the far side of the Quickwater. Dziit Pride is to move to the reserve position.” Pouncer was beside Ferlitz, again commanding the battle, ignoring the danger they had just come through.
Tskombe searched the skies, knowing with an old soldier's instincts that the pause was only the harbinger of another form of attack. Within minutes a squadron of gravcars swept over in close formation. These were armed with heavier, longer-ranged ballista. They concentrated their fire on a single tuskvor. Most of the shafts bounced off its mag-armored flanks, but a few found their way into gaps in the articulation. The huge beast bellowed in pain and fell, writhing, crushing its tsvasztet and throwing its occupants to the ground. Some of the scurrying figures escaped, perhaps to be picked up by a following tuskvor; some were struck down as the tuskvor shuddered through its death agony. Answering bolts flew up from the czrav, dragging down more attackers with their monofilament nets, but the Tzaatz were willing to fight now, as they had not been before, and the battle broke up into a dozen or more skirmishes. The fighting lasted an hour and cost them four tuskvor that Quacy could see, many more that he could not, according to the reports flowing in through Ferlitz-Telepath.
More gravcars appeared, combat carriers and tanks with polarizers too powerful to be overloaded with the boulder laden nets, and the rain of arrows intensified. Tskombe could only watch, powerless as tuskvor after tuskvor inexorably fell. The rules of honor would have allowed him to carry an energy weapon, and a magrifle like the one he had carried in the escape from the Citadel so long ago would serve admirably to engage the gravcars, but he didn't have one. Neither the Tzaatz nor the orbiting ships that served as witness to the conduct of the Honor-war would know the fire came from an alien exempt from the rules, and he had no wish to provide the enemy with an excuse to bring their vastly superior firepower to bear. The advance swept on, but the gaps in the ranks were getting larger. Ferlitz-Telepath was in the mind-trance continually now. Pouncer consulted Battle Captain's plot board, updated now with intelligence Ferlitz had gleaned from the minds of the enemy commanders.
