I didn’t say you could go yet, motherfuckers!
Harry went to rapid fire, using the rest of his magazine to probe the gondola, hoping he was distracting, or better, disabling the crew.
The second bolt fired, also striking the target, but yielding no effect.
They’ve got to be using hydrogen. There’s no way they have enough helium to fill their ships.
He snarled and let a little bit of his bottled frustration and anger out for a glimpse of the world. The bolt locked back on his rifle, so he rocked a new magazine into place and kept firing, this time aiming for the engine nacelles. The airship’s acceleration was still building, and the range to target was nearing the limits of their improvised weaponry.
Harry heard a third bolt go downrange, but the unmusical tung! was accompanied by a crash and a scream. He looked back to see one gunner facedown and another holding his bleeding arm. The capstan, used to tension the bow, had failed catastrophically, and the parts had been flung in all directions. A materials failure, bad design, the gunners got nervous and over-cranked the machine—it didn’t matter. Harry spied Volo at the head of the little crowd staring at the wreckage, and the remaining weapon wasn’t in service.
“Volo, make ready to load and fire, goddamit!” Harry yelled. He left the rifle and ran the few meters to the shallow pit that had been used to conceal the wagon-born ballistae. Volo gave him a started look and sprang back into action. Harry snatched the bolt from the Sarmatchani crewman looking askance at the bleeding tribesman on the ground and thrust it at the SpinDog before roughly pushing the chieftain toward the tensioning mechanism. “Yannis, be pissed tomorrow, but spin the crank, now!”
Harry and Yannis worked the alternating handles on the crank, drawing the bowstaves back. Made from the wooden suspension leaves of the cannibalized wagons and inserted into pre-tensioned loops of thick sisal-like plant fiber, they creaked with a strain they’d not been designed to handle. Too much load and they would crack. Too little and the bolt wouldn’t reach the airship, which was now gathering enough speed to respond to the rudder and was already turned all the way to one side. The pawl clacked forward one more time, and Harry stopped.
Volo laid the bolt into groove, ensuring the notch was seated.
“Light!” the SpinDog ordered, and Harry watched as Stella, of all people, laid the torch against the little metal cage immediately behind the spiked business end of the bolt. The mixture of twisted plant fiber, animal fat, and signal flare lit with a sullen red glow. “Training. Stand clear.”
Harry itched to aim the weapon himself, but Volo had already achieved two hits. This was their last chance and Volo was the right person.
TUNG!
The group held their breath as the bolt described a graceful arc before curving down and disappearing into the stern of the ship. A moment later there was a sudden glow, and then an audible whoosh as a brilliant, glaring light bloomed from the stricken ship. The fire was bright enough to make the daylight seem pale in comparison. Immediately the stern crumpled and sank, arresting the ship’s forward motion. The fire ate at the fabric, creeping forward toward the bow. The gondola sagged suddenly, and figures were visible at an open door. A coil of rope spilled out, and a man, then two, grabbed at it and slid down.
Unfortunately, the ship was still much too high, despite the accelerating loss in altitude. The lower man arrested his descent as he reached the end, still fifty meters above the ground. He barely had time to consider the calamity. His fellow didn’t stop, and both men pinwheeled, doll-like, from the end of the dangling rope. Their screams lasted only a moment before they disappeared against the dark earth.
A second whooshing sound heralded the ignition of the forward gasbag, and Harry put up a hand to shield his face. Even at a distance nearing three hundred meters, the heat was intense, yet thankfully brief. The clan around him was screaming in jubilation, drowning out the distant, thin screams of their unseen victims trapped onboard. He looked around, an unaccustomed smile slowly growing on his face, as his body rocked from the joyful pounding Yannis was delivering. Stella was screaming a paean of pure triumph and blood. Harry looked at Volo and offered a casual salute, touching two fingers to his brow.
“Good shooting, Volo!” Harry yelled, but he doubted the SpinDog could hear him, although he saw Volo grin in response.
Well, maybe we can make Murphy’s Law the other guys’ problem, after all.
* * * * *
Chapter Seventeen
R’Bak
This is even louder than the feast scene from the last Star Wars movie. At least there aren’t any of those annoying teddy bears, even if the music is about the same.
Harry gripped his drinking horn tightly as another drunken Sarmatchani slapped him hard enough to bruise, braying his approval and giving Harry a great view of his food-stained mustache, the bristles sticking out at odd angles as the man yelled something congratulatory. Harry just nodded and smiled, since he could barely hear himself think over the sound of the hide drums and buzzing, kazoo-like harmonicas which served the Sarmatchani as musical instruments. He turned carefully, balancing on the three-legged stool propping up his drunken butt, here at the head table. He opened his mouth to address Yannis.
“Well done, boy!” Yannis overrode Harry with a roar, his boozy words accompanied by a bit of spray. “Have I told you how well done that was!”
Yannis caught sight of something over Harry’s shoulder and didn’t wait for Harry’s answer.
“Excellent, the main course is here for the hero’s feast!”
The entire assembled clan had been doing heroic trencher duty for an hour already. Immature whinnie was on the menu, and though it didn’t taste just like chicken, Harry enjoyed the spices. Some sort of grain dish, whose individual flat grains were shaped somewhat like pumpkin seeds. More unidentifiable meat, tasting like the first thing Stella had fed him during his recovery. Each place setting had a shallow clay bowl with hot coals and Yannis had shown him how to cook the meat just long enough for it to brown before dunking it in gravy and wolfing it down.
Or doing whatever took the place of a wolf on this damned planet.
He looked for Stella in the crowd below, but he was jostled by two men bearing a wooden tray nearly a meter long. Harry almost recoiled in disgust looking at the contents.
The new dish was a bug. A giant, red and black bug shaped like a lobster, if a lobster had extra legs and the giant hooked mandibles of a mosquito larvae. It was still alive, its segmented body pinned to the wooden tray with sharpened dowels. He swore that the damned thing’s eyes were watching him, and the jaws clacked together angrily. Harry could hear Rodriguez groaning next to him.
“Oh shit, I was afraid of something like this.”
“Like what, Marco?” Harry said, his voice rising an octave or six.
“That, El-Tee, that’s lunch,” Rodriguez said soberly. “And you can’t flunk lunch.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” Harry eased back as the bug tried to escape again. He tried a different tack and addressed the chief. “What the hell, Yannis! What’s that?”
“We’re lucky, Ha-Ree!” Yannis said happily. “I wasn’t sure our hunters could find a nest of astakos with so little notice. They are quite rare, but tasty. Their flesh gives a warrior new strength and potency! Haha!”
Yannis dug an elbow in Harry’s side hard enough to dislocate a rib, laughing so uproariously that Harry had no doubt what kind of potency Yannis meant. Before he could suggest an alternative to this no-doubt great honor, the drunk chief whipped his belt knife out overhand, severing one of the legs. The creature tried to hunch its back in a pain response, and the armor rubbed against itself at the joints, making a grunching noise while the remaining seven, count ‘em, seven fucking legs, clattered on the table as it tried fruitlessly to escape.
The chief dropped the spasming leg in his cooking coals, holding it in place with his knife until it stilled. The smell wasn’t bad, and the carapace was turnin
g a bright white in the heat.
“Go on, you’ve earned the second piece!” Yannis prodded Harry. “Only the bravest may sample it! Do watch out for the mandibles, they’re quite sharp.”
Oh, man. I have to eat a fucking giant cockroach.
He looked over at Rodriguez again, but he was no help. The noncom only nodded sagely, trying and failing to suppress a gleeful smile.
“It’s not too bad, El-Tee,” he said, motioning to Harry to get a move on before swallowing more of whatever the fermented drink was. “Better than cobra-venom gland sushi, like I had to eat in Cambodia. You gotta eat it, or you’re refusing the hospitality of the clan. It would mess up that shiny new hero image you made by shooting down the blimp-thing. This meal is a test. You can’t flunk it.”
“I didn’t shoot it down!” Harry said, looking over at Volo, a couple stools over. “Volo shot it down. He should have the honor!”
Harry glanced down at the struggling bug.
Grunch, grunch.
“On no, Harry—I mean, El-Tee,” Volo said, folding his arms and standing. “You’re the leader. The honor is yours! No one will be surprised if I, a mere gunner, refuse the honor so a great warrior such as yourself can enjoy this…feast.”
I can’t believe this shit.
Harry grabbed his horn to swig some of the alcoholic-whatever-it-was and fortify his strength.
“Hey, El-Tee, do you want to know where they get this fermented milk?”
“No. No, I do not.”
Harry took a breath, drew his knife, and deliberated which leg he’d choose.
Clatter-clatter-clatter. Gruuuunch.
Just fuck me.
* * *
“Oww,” Harry said out loud. He awoke flat on his back, looking up at the ceiling of the same style yurtlike tent as the one in which he’d recovered. He let his memories reassemble themselves in no particular order.
Finding Rodriguez and Grevorg, injured but alive. Searching the crash site for anything valuable. The elated march to a nearby Sarmatchani tribe’s village. What else?
Oh right. The traditional Sarmatchani drinking celebration. Fermented…I still don’t want to know what it was. And now the traditional penance…
The scent of last night’s fire failed to complement the pounding in his head, as he creakily struggled to his elbows. Gray morning light filtered in from the gaps between chimney and the tent roof, and that hurt a bit, too. “Oww.”
“Good morning, Ha-Ree.”
He started, nearly falling off his short billet, and looked to his right to see Stella. She was under the covers, curled up on her side. Her long, dark hair lay tangled across her bare shoulder. He was suddenly aware of three things. She was gorgeous, he was utterly naked under the blankets, and holy crap that’s the chief’s daughter!
“You’ve finally awoken,” she said, smiling. “I’m glad. You were snoring like a lovestruck whinnie, and I feared lest one hear you and come searching for a mate. Fortunately, I was here to defend your virtue.”
“Uhh,” was the best Harry could offer. “Thanks?”
“Now you’re awake, and I can finally get warm,” Stella said happily, scooting under the blankets and draping herself across his chest and other parts. If she was surprised to find him without the approved Sarmatchani pajamas, she gave no sign.
Perhaps the Sarmatchani didn’t wear pajamas, Harry thought. She certainly isn’t.
* * *
An undefinable time later, Harry was still awake, and in much the same position as when he awoke, except this time his head was clear, and his shoulder was decorated with the head of a beautiful woman.
“You demonstrated considerable foresight bringing that jug of water with you,” Harry said. After addressing the first round of rather urgent business, Stella had plied him with cup after cup of cool water, and his headache had slowly receded. “Or was it experience? Oww!” he added, involuntarily.
“You think I sneak into tents with drunken strangers as a matter of course, you skrellig!” Stella said, her fist cocked back, ready to repeat her punch. “I’m the daughter of—”
“Easy, easy!” Harry wheezed, one hand over his solar plexus. He didn’t know what a skrellig was, but it probably wasn’t a compliment. “I was just asking if you tried that witch’s brew we were drinking last night. Maybe you knew that I really needed some water. That’s all!”
“Oh,” Stella said, suddenly deflating. “I thought that you meant…never mind. Everyone knows that strong drink first brings laughter and then fireside boasting but leaves you with an empty stomach and an emptier head.”
She lifted the blanket from his stomach and groin, studying where she’d hit him. “Does it hurt? I don’t see a mark.”
“No, I’m fine,” Harry replied, hastily tugging the blanket back down. “I feel good. Perfect, actually.”
“Well, of course you are,” she said, matter-of-factly, and rolled away to refill Harry’s kidney-shaped canteen cup again from the water jug. “I took some of your anger, so naturally you feel a bit happier. What could be more natural than that?”
“My anger?”
“You hold your anger inside you, like a fist,” she said, sipping. “Many could see it. Rosha saw it first. I thought your anger was aimed at us, that you were glad to hurt Grevorg. It’s why I didn’t trust you. But now we have a great victory, just as you said we would! So, I decided to take some of your anger, to see what’s underneath. I should have known.”
Harry digested that. About the time he got on active duty, the military was experimenting with psychologists to help operators who had problems. The cost of training a replacement was high enough that it made sense to try to fix the ones they already had. None of his fellow SEALs trusted the concept. Despite having dodged that particular bullet, now Harry was getting his head shrunk by a barbarian girl on an alien planet. It hadn’t been what he expected. Maybe if the Teams had beautiful women shrinks, he would have given it a try. Of course, he’d already had a—
“You have a woman,” Stella said. It wasn’t a question.
“Had,” Harry ground out, fighting an intense wash of emotions. Without any warning, his feelings spiraled downwards, like a high-speed canopy malfunction. He attempted to maintain his composure as anger, sorrow, and more anger eroded his failing control. Residual exhaustion, too much drink, and a copious helping of guilt finished him and the anger both, leaving only a surprising emptiness. To his horror, he felt the sting of tears filling his eyes. “She’s dead. She’s been dead for a long time.”
Stella sat up, ignoring any modesty and gently took one of his hands in both of hers.
“Tell me.”
So, he did.
He spilled his guts.
What it meant to be in the Teams and how proud he was. How much it cost. His family. Being gone all the time, endlessly deployed. The arguments. The last-moment orders to Somalia, just as he was considering getting out. The absolute wreckage of a country, the lawlessness. The sneering militia who used kids no older than Harry’s own sons as cannon fodder, knowing that the soft Americans would hesitate to shoot. The useless UN commanders, padding their careers and lining their own pockets. His decision to make a little justice in a capricious, uncaring universe. How good it had felt, torturing the militia captain who resold the refugees’ food, who’d mousetrapped Harry’s unit into killing innocents. The consequences. The resulting helo ride. Waking up dead to find himself a century and a half too late to fix anything, after all. All of it.
When he finished he was crying. Big bad, Navy SEAL, leaking all over his own stupid face. Wiping his eyes, he looked at his audience. Stella still held his hand, but she too was crying, tears leaving shining tracks down her cheeks.
“The gods chose you, Ha-Ree,” she said with perfect conviction. “I don’t know why, or how, but the hand of a greater power is clearly upon you, reaching out to steer your fate.”
“Fuck the higher power,” he answered vehemently, and then went on somewhat mor
e calmly, gently squeezing her hand. “I didn’t ask for this. This moment has been the first decent thing that’s happened to me in the last…century.”
He laughed as he began his last sentence and then stumbled over the last word as his chuckle nearly turned into a sob. God, he hated being a big wuss. He felt the bedding shift as Stella adjusted something, and he looked up to see her smiling and wiping her eyes.
“So, this is the first good thing in your life in so long?” Stella asked, raising one eyebrow, and then the blanket. “And I’m the one responsible? As a warrior-maiden, I find that acceptable. Let’s prolong the experience, then.”
And she did.
* * *
Volo watched as Tapper emerged from the tent, swinging both arms and stretching. The Terran was followed by Stella. Both appeared to be pretty happy with themselves, and to his surprise, Volo found himself sanguine with the prospect of them pairing off. One of the advantages, in his opinion, of planetside life among the Sarmatchani was the absence of social constraints on relations between men and women, like those imposed by Second Spin’s genpop council.
Of course, his mellow feeling was probably influenced by the recent break in his own drought of…activity. Following the successful downing of the J’Stull airship—and his role in the operation—Volo had been propositioned rather directly, and he’d accepted.
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