by Chris Bunch
“Firing one,” she said, and could hear herself breathing very loudly.
She hit the detonator trigger inside her suit, feeling it slip on suddenly sweat-slippery fingers.
Riss saw a puff of sediment, felt a slight wash of seawater.
She climbed back up to the hatch, and then on up to the chain. There was a noticeable gouge in the metal.
M’chel allowed herself to feel a bit — just a bit — of hope, and packed another charge in place and turned the detonator on.
Again, she went back, after reporting progress on her radio, and set it off.
Another puff … but this time, nothing seemed to have changed.
She wondered what the hell the difference was, tried a third charge.
This time there was not only a puff, but the anchor chain slithered down, crashing on the hull, no doubt scaring the hell out of the three inside.
Now all that was holding the p-boat pinned was a bit of the sunken ship’s upper hull.
• • •
“Anytime you’re ready,” Riss said. “Sir.”
Spada shrugged, fed power to the drive.
Through the hull, they could hear, could feel, scraping, and then the boat surged away.
“That did it,” the engineer announced unnecessarily.
“Take me home, Captain Spada,” Riss said, trying to avoid a sag of relief in her voice. “And never, ever, ever take me messing about with boats again.”
FORTY-NINE
Signal intelligence from Irdis said that the Shaoki rulers, the somewhat reconstituted council, really did believe in killing the messenger.
When reports of the “Free Thur Liberation” group and the depredations on Thur came back, there were wholesale reliefs and several executions of officers assigned to the great military base, which wouldn’t do Shaoki morale any good whatsoever.
But Grok’s glee was a little buried under larger events.
King Saleph was finally ready for the assault on Irdis.
As horrified as anyone was at the debacle on VI/III, he was now ready to listen to advice from his mercenaries, so long as they didn’t rub things in.
• • •
“One of the reasons I decided to become a war leader,” Friedrich said, sotto voce, to Riss, “was to stride nobly down the corridors of power, looking regal, while generals and admirals cowered out of my way.”
M’chel looked at him oddly.
“Of course,” von Baldur said, “if I had a brain, I would have realized the same effect can be realized with a sour expression and a clipboard.”
Riss hid a snicker.
• • •
“Your forces appear to be assembling quite in order,” von Baldur told King Saleph, who preened.
His chief advisor, Prince Barab, did the same.
“I think the only thing that needs your approval is the exact role Star Risk and its employees might profitably play in the coming days.”
The king looked a bit alarmed. “I assumed that you will be beside my fighting men and women, ensuring their tenacity is strong.”
Riss wasn’t sure tenacity could be qualified, but said nothing.
“Of course,” von Baldur said soothingly, “but there are additional tasks we might be qualified for.”
He passed a fiche across, and the king fed it into a viewer and scanned it. Then he scanned it again.
“This … this is irregular …” he started, but Barab politely interrupted.
“I think some of these are most meritorious, and you and I should provide our input, Your Majesty.”
“Oh. Yes. Of course,” the king said.
• • •
“I think we just won,” von Baldur said as they left the palace.
“Appears so,” Riss said. “Assuming someone doesn’t get a wild hair.”
“Always assuming that.”
• • •
Shortly thereafter, one of Khelat’s most noisome gossip artists had the hot flash that the famous Star Risk warriors would be mounting a special attack when the assault on the evil Shaoki’s capital began, and that the clever king would be leading diversions instead of the main thrust.
Credence was led to the story by the seizure of all copies of the holo, and the whisking off to detainment of the erring hack.
• • •
Riss got a message from Prince Wahfer:
WHEN TIMES AND CIRCUMSTANCES
CHANGE FOR THE BETTER, YOU AND I
ARE FATED TO BE TOGETHER.
The message gave her chills, and she determined she had better not take Wahfer casually. When the current mess was over with, she would have to have a long talk with the man.
• • •
“I’m not happy,” Redon Spada said, twirling his first, and only, glass of wine.
“Why not?” Riss asked. “Haven’t your paychecks been clearing?”
“Man cannot live by bread alone,” Spada said.
“No,” Riss said. “A little unsalted butter and caviar makes a nice addition.”
She nodded to the cut glass tray and bowls in front of them.
“I think it may even come from Earth,” she said. “What the hell. My palate just says, ‘Fish eggs,’ and then ‘yum.’”
Spada obeyed, and spread butter, chopped onions, caviar, and lemon on a toast point.
“Don’t laugh at me,” he said.
“I won’t,” Riss said, seeing how serious the pilot was.
“I don’t think I’m going to make it through this next one,” Spada said.
“Oh, piddle,” Riss said. “Do you know how many times someone has crept up to me and said how mortal he felt … and how alive and healthy the sniveler is today?”
“I’ve never had this feeling before,” Spada said.
“I could, were I a suspicious woman, think that you were hoping to rouse up my womanly instincts, and I’d take you home with me and let you screw my little lights out.”
Spada brightened, tried to hide it.
“Sirrah,” M’chel said. “I thought you were a perfect gentleman.”
“Great gods,” Spada said. “I hope not.”
“So do I,” Riss purred.
• • •
It was just dawn when M’chel Riss kicked Redon Spada.
“Wake up and get dressed, and take your sorry ass back to your ship. Love’s for later. Now it’s time to make war.
“And stay alive, hey?”
• • •
Jasmine came into Friedrich’s quarters with a quizzical expression.
“Boss, I got something I don’t know how to handle.”
“Go,” von Baldur said, turning from his computer.
“I sent the monthly retainer to Anya Davenport…. And it was returned, marked ESCROW ACCOUNT CLOSED.”
“Hmm,” Friedrich said. “Well, she said she was going to fire us. I guess she’s honest.”
“That’s not the problem,” Jasmine said. “I tried to com her, to get a complete explanation.”
“And?”
“I got somebody who said he was taking care of her accounts while she was offworld. I asked where she was, and was told, and I quote, ‘Some faraway cluster called the Khelat worlds,’ end quote. No other details were offered.”
Von Baldur stroked his chin thoughtfully, then shook his head.
“I’m damned if I know what it means, either. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
• • •
The fleets from the other Khelat systems drifted in to Khelat II and were escorted to parking orbits by Spada and Inchcape’s ships.
Then, secretly, the destroyers and p-boats loaded up Goodnight’s battalions of raiders and vanished from the Khelat worlds.
At about the same time, Grok, King, and von Baldur disappeared.
The Shaoki agents Grok had discovered were carefully fed the news about von Baldur’s disappearance, and that several new divisions of Khelat had vanished with him.
Then King Saleph, on the bridge of his warshi
p, flanked by the might of Khelat, went off to the final battle.
FIFTY
“The only nifty thing about this operation,” Chas Goodnight told M’chel Riss, “is that it ain’t in our contract to pick up the pieces after we go and break them. No peace plan, no negotiations, no foreign aid.”
“It’s nice to lead a simple life,” Riss agreed. “But how much you want to bet they’ll find some way to make it complicated again?”
“No takers here,” Goodnight said. “But I better get back to my troopies. We’ll be on the ground in another hour.”
Slightly against policy, which dictated there never should be more than one general in one spot at a time, to avoid catastrophic damage, the two had jumped out from Khelat on a single transport, the rest of Good-night’s battalions trailing behind on other ships.
There was a time tick on the control panel of Riss’s transport showing the time until landing — or, rather, assaulting — Irdis.
Riss wondered why she never lost the symptoms — dry mouth; sweaty palms; the desire, heavily suppressed, to babble nervously; the constant feeling of a full bladder, without being able to empty it — before an attack.
She checked her blaster, her ammo pouch, and her emergency pack.
She was as ready as she could be.
At least this time, she thought, we’re not landing in goddamned suits.
She went down into the troop holds, made sure officers and noncoms were checking their men and women.
Another blessing, she thought, was that most of the raiding force was mercenary rather than Khelat, which suggested a bit more professionalism.
“Strap down,” the intercom brayed. “We’re coming in fast and hard.”
M’chel found an open bulkhead with an emergency landing harness, obeyed the command.
There was air scream as the transport entered atmosphere, hard bumps from maneuvering, atmospheric conditions, or near misses.
Riss preferred not to think about the last.
If a transport, on final, took a hard hit, that would pretty much be it for its passengers, and she despised the thought of dying helplessly.
At least the antigravity was full on, so her stomach wasn’t changing places with her tongue every few seconds.
“Landing in four … three … two …” And the crashing thud and bouncing didn’t need to finish the countdown.
The ship stopped moving, and the large clamshell doors on each hold crashed open.
Riss flipped open her landing harness, and ran down a ramp into rubble.
The landing ground had been well fired up by the rockets and chainguns of the transports.
The city — Riss didn’t even remember its name — had a large spaceport on its outskirts. The city center was on flatland, and then the land rose to a minor peak.
Here, a few of the colonels on the Shaoki Council lived. There were also the sensors for the port’s antiaircraft system, a com center, and so forth.
The Shaoki might have been expecting the port to be hit.
Instead, Goodnight put his troops down on the crest of the hill, with orders to ruin anything and anyone they came across.
The AA systems below were useless, and the mercenaries set up precision short-range rockets, and destroyed ships, hangars, and control towers.
Within two hours, the alert came: The Shaoki reaction force was lifting off from its various bases to come after them.
Moving fast, but without haste, the mercenaries re-boarded their transports and the ships lifted away.
Below them was a city in flames.
They’d taken less than two dozen casualties, most of them wounded.
“Now this,” Goodnight said, “is the way to fight a frigging war, not padoodling around on some vacuum-packed nowhere!”
Riss couldn’t argue with that.
• • •
Other raiders were hitting in various places around Irdis, and Wahfer’s cruisers were smashing orbital stations.
All this was intended to confuse the Shaoki, and Grok judged, from his monitors, that it was succeeding very well.
• • •
Riss and Goodnight’s second target was the seaport city of Nonat.
Again they used indirection.
Rather than attack the port itself, which would have meant coming in from the seaward side of the city, where most of its aerial defenses were located, the raiders came in from the landward side.
Their landing ground wasn’t the spaceport near the city, but directly in the warehouse section that reached for kilometers.
The soldiers’ orders were simple: Burn what you can, smash the rest. And don’t worry about the Shaoki unless they put up a good fight.
They didn’t.
Most of them were what Grok had deduced, from SIGnal INTelligence, to be reservists, and rather sullen ones at that.
They fled, when they could, and the mercenaries set to work with the torch.
The full warehouses went up with roars, and the soldiers were forced to pull back.
The Shaoki aerial units were closer, and managed to attack just as Riss’s and Goodnight’s units were heading back to their transports.
But waiting overhead were two flights of Star Risk patrol boats that slashed down into the attack.
Riss watched one boat blast a wallowing Shaoki destroyer out of the air to smash down in the center of the city. She wondered, as the p-boat flashed overhead, if Redon Spada was at the controls.
That’s the problem with having gonads, she thought. You start worrying about people who have proven capable of taking very good care of themselves.
She put that, and Spada, out of her mind, and concentrated on chivvying her troops into their ships.
This time, there were less than twenty casualties. “I think,” Friedrich von Baldur said from the bridge of his ship to King Saleph, “we have the Shaoki sufficiently confused. If you wish, Your Majesty, you may land the landing force.”
FIFTY-ONE
Khelat’s invasion fleet was stacked over Irdis. At the lowest level, within Irdis’s atmosphere, keeping at about ten thousand meters, were the assault craft, hammering away at the ground defenses.
Some were huge monitors with tubes firing monstrous missiles one at a time. Others were darting small ships, almost as small as Spada’s patrol craft, hitting targets here and there. Over them were the Command and Control ships, vectoring the small ships to ground targets or the Shaoki aerial formations.
The troop transports were the next in the layer, escorted by Inchcape’s destroyers, in holding patterns until ground fire was suppressed.
Some of the Khelat generals, seeing the patterned hell being leveled against Irdis’s surface, thought they might make an unopposed landing and began to act cheerful. None of the mercenaries with any experience who overheard this cheeriness bothered to argue with them.
The generals would find out in due course.
Beyond the destroyers was the main battle fleet, including Wahfer’s cruiser squadron. Among them were the supply ships, hospital ships, maintenance craft.
Further out were light escorts, making sure no offworld Shaoki reliefs or attackers got through to the fleet or the transports.
King Saleph, from his battleship just outside Irdis’s atmosphere, gave the landing order, and the transports swooped in.
Now all of the Khelat and mercenary attack ships were striking anything that resembled a target. Shaoki AA missiles launched, and were acquired, diverted by the electronic countermeasure ships, and destroyed.
Then the sites themselves became targets — small ships dove on them before they could reload and salted the sites with small antipersonnel missiles and even dumb bombs. Even the handful of Shaoki mobile launch sites were hit as they hastily packed up launchers and guidance trailers.
The first wave of transports zigged toward their landing grounds. Wahfer brought his cruisers low, savaging the Shaoki infantry and lifter units, backed by Inchcape’s destroyers.
He
re and there a transport streamed fire, smoke, and dove toward the ground. Then the first wave was down, and Khelat infantry swarmed out, their lifters close behind them.
And, from the ruins, Shaoki infantry fought back. The soldiers may have been badly led, indifferently trained. But they knew how to die.
The battles were fierce and bloody.
• • •
“I have an intercept,” Grok announced, “that one of my underlings sent on to the Pride of Khelat. Actually, it’s a series of intercepts.”
It was the second day of battle, and the ground attack was going trudgingly well. There’d been five landings, and all of them had at least found a foothold.
The four other members of Star Risk waited, knowing whatever Grok had wouldn’t be commonplace.
“Shaoki Command keeps querying its intel where are the foreign mercenary commanders, and ordering any station who has data to report with the highest priority. With, of course, no responses.”
Jasmine King accepted another cup of coffee from Goodnight.
“This is coupled with rather panicky requests for reinforcements from various ground units,” Grok continued. “Invariably, the reply is that without reporting the presence of the mercenaries, Shaoki Command assumes that all of the landings are nothing but feints, and until we foreigners are reported, none of the reserves will be released.”
Goodnight lifted his cup in a toast to Friedrich.
“It is nice to belong to a unit so feared that its very absence wins victories.”
“So far,” von Baldur said, a bit cynically.
• • •
The first wave of Khelat infantrymen had been not the bravest of the Khelat, but deliberately chosen sacrificial and penal units. They were hit hard, and were beginning to fall back.
King Saleph landed the second wave, his regulars.
Now there were no more suicidal, frontal attacks.
Saleph had learned from the catastrophe on VI/III, and landed his soldiers here, there, and ordered their officers to always look for the flanks and attack there.
“Never send a man where you can send a bullet … or missile,” was one of his standing orders, which had been given him by Riss, and hardly original with her.
The Khelat secured their footholds and began spreading out.
