She clicked the radio back on. “Stant’ala, be out of your tree by nightfall, and make your way to the water’s edge.”
“The antenna?” She couldn’t blame the man for what sounded like a lack of enthusiasm.
“Can you make that swim?” The harbor was integral to the fort itself; the only other way to access the quay was by water.
“I will make it.”
*
“Bastelta, they should have returned.” Sak’il did not like pointing out the obvious to his superior. He was a veteran; for thirty years he had served Lord Madral, and Sy’rane would be his last post. He did not have Tur’ma’s ambitions for promotion and further service to the wider Kaerin war host. If he ever made bastelta, it would be as Fas’toal’s replacement here, at this post. He had no wish to train subjects and shepherd their worthless clans in the unending wars between them. He’d had enough of that early in his career.
“Yes, I’m aware, Teark Sak’il.” Bastelta Fas’toal nodded in frustration and looked between Teark Lom’ata and him for some sign of support. “You watch the night sky as if you believe Tur’ma’s story of flying machines.”
“I have no reason to distrust him, Bastelta.” He’d shared what Tur’ma had told him with both Fas’toal and Lom’ata.
“Nor do I, yet . . .”
“Quiet!” Teark Lom’ata turned his head towards the harbor. They were all standing in the timber tower where the western and northern walls came together. The fort’s gate was behind them on the northern wall as they all turned towards the harbor.
“Do you hear that?” Lom’ata was pointing out to the water.
Sak’il heard nothing. Then a high-pitched whine reached them, coming from out beyond the breakwater.
“What is that?”
“Sounds like a machine of some sort . . .”
Two ribbons of white, wakes from fast-moving craft, resolved out of the blackness beyond the breakwater, moving directly towards them.
Sak’il did not wait for Fas’toal’s order. He turned to where his dadus waited behind him. “Get my finger on the seawall, now.”
“You, too, Teark Lom’ata,” Fas’toal said.
Sak’il was about to protest that they needed to maintain a watch on the landward walls, when the strange boats, which were moving far too fast, opened fire.
Not ever in his wildest imagination did Lupe Flores think he’d be standing behind a .30 caliber machine mounted on the bow of a boat, charging towards a medieval-looking fort on an alien world. Terrified, he caught himself laughing hysterically the moment before he leaned into the stock of the spindle-mounted machine gun, sighted along the top of the quickly approaching wall, and pulled the trigger.
What looked like laser fire erupted out from the boat as every fourth cartridge in the linked ammo belt was a tracer round. Between the gun’s recoil and the motion of the boat, it was hard to stay on target, but the tracer paths were more than helpful. Another stream of light waved across the top edge of the fort’s walls, coming from the adjacent boat. The Jema driving the boats slowed and began a turn to run parallel to the wall at a range of a couple of hundred yards. Sparks of gunfire blossomed along the walls, and Lupe adjusted his aim even as he heard a round whiz by his head.
Gunfire, close enough to be heard over the outboards, erupted from the largest of the three ships anchored in the harbor. He spun his gun, walking around the mount stanchion, and poured fire into the large sailing ship.
“Not that one!” Arsolis screamed from his knees in front of the RHIB’s console. Two of Arsolis’s ships had been pretty much wrecked by the time they’d run up on the rocky shore where they’d met Audy. Audy had promised him he could have any of the fort’s ships they could capture. Arsolis seemed to think that included the ship whose crew had scrambled top side and was now shooting at them.
Lupe focused on the group of Kaerin sailors congregating around what looked to him like a cannon. The sailors had brought lanterns with them up onto the deck of the ship, giving him a target. More important, he was getting the hang of timing his bursts between the bone-jarring shocks as the bow of the RHIB cut through the shallow waves. He didn’t let up as the top side of the Kaerin ship’s deck was swarming with warriors. The Kaerin crew went down as if brushed by an invisible hand as the deck around them exploded from hundreds of rounds impacting and tearing through the wood. Something ignited a small fire next to the cannon.
The Kaerin ship blew up in a series of explosions marching from amidships forward, sending a roiling fireball skyward that lit up the entire harbor. He glanced down at Arsolis, who was leaning over the side of the boat towards the ascending fireball with an outstretched arm, screaming, “Neeeeehhh!”
Lupe swung his gun back around towards the two remaining Kaerin ships and held off on the trigger, daring someone to fire. They both remained dark and empty of any activity. He’d really like to come out of this with Arsolis still talking to him. The Jema in the back of the boat were pulling their toys out of hard-sided cases, as the RHIB slowly turned back to the walls and surged forward. He checked his ammo belt and reoriented himself towards the fort. The light from the burning hull cast an odd, shimmering glow against the fort’s wall, and he could see a lot more of the enemy now, standing along its ramparts. This wasn’t going to be as much fun as last time.
*
Stant’ala gripped his arms tightly against his body in an effort to still the shivering that racked him. He struggled to breathe deeply as he sat atop one of the large rocks that formed the quay. The swim through the cold water had nearly killed him, and still might, if he couldn’t get out of his wet clothes and get warm soon. If he was going to die, he was going to make certain his death accomplished something. He had started moving down the quay on the outer side, opposite the harbor, a few feet above the waterline, stepping from one rock to another with legs that weren’t working very well when the world erupted in gunfire.
He climbed to where his head peeked over the packed gravel of the roadway atop the quay and saw the two RHIBs within the harbor racing towards the fort, firing as they went. He glanced to his right; the harbor tower was thirty yards away. If there was someone in there transmitting, he wasn’t going to make it in time sneaking along the water’s edge. He could only hope watchmen’s attention was focused on the attack boats. He climbed up further and gained the road way, swaying upright on numb feet. With the intention of running the remaining distance, he found himself falling. He picked himself up out of the gravel and tried it again, this time walking.
The door at the base of the stone tower was shut but unlocked. He’d made the swim with nothing but his bouma blade strapped to his calf and a 9mm Glock belted around his waist. He went through the door and started up the winding staircase with the handgun held out in front of him. Three full turns within the narrow staircase, and his head was peeking just over the level of the timber floor. A single Kaerin stood across the room, at the window overlooking the harbor. Next to him was a large, heavy desk, stacked with the equipment he knew to be a long-talking device. He could see the glowing tubes and coils of copper wiring.
After living and training with Terran technology for a year, he now had nothing but disdain for Kaerin technology that earlier in his life he’d thought was akin to magic. Honor was important to him; as much as he wanted to slip his Jema blade between the ribs of the Kaerin warrior, he, like all of Hyrika’s scouts, had been trained at the hands of Jeff Krouse. The mission came before honor.
He took another step up, and the Kaerin warrior turned towards him with a look of confusion.
“The Jema have returned.”
Wet or not, the Glock worked just as it was meant to. He was so racked with shivers that he had to fire three times before he managed to hit the Kaerin, who had charged the second he lifted the gun. It took another two rounds, delivered at point-blank range, before the Kaerin fell dead in front of him after lunging the final few feet. He looked down to see a Kaerin knife hilt standing out of
his own thigh. Hyrika was right; these weren’t Strema. The Kaerin had nearly killed him. He hopped on one leg to the bed on the far side of the round room and wrapped himself in the blankets before finding a pot of hot tea on the small brazier.
He collapsed on the chair in front of the simple radio. It might still be of some use, if he didn’t have to destroy it. For that to be an option, he had to stay alive and alert. The Kaerin in the fort would no doubt be sending a runner to the tower soon if they hadn’t already. He gripped the hilt of the Kaerin knife and with a scream of rage pulled it from his leg. Delirious with pain; the sensation of his warm blood running against his frozen skin felt wonderful. He cut a strip from the blanket and cinched it tightly over the wound. He had to hang on. He sipped at the scalding weak tea with one hand, relishing the path of warmth the liquid traced to his gut. In his other was his handgun, covering the top of the circular staircase. He wasn’t done yet.
*
The sound of the large explosion out in the harbor following the initial gunfire was sign enough for Audy that the Kaerin’s attention should be fixed. He’d met up with Hyrika in the woods surrounding the fort, after ambushing the column of Kaerin that had been sent out to find them. The battle hadn’t lasted long, and he’d lost three of his soldiers before they’d managed to flank the group and mop up the survivors. Outside of his first encounter with the Kaerin ship crew, he’d never fought the Kaerin before; none of them had. They weren’t Strema; that much was clear now. They were trained well and had recovered from the surprise of the ambush and counterattacked. He was lucky to have lost as few warriors as he had.
He held down his transmit button. “Go.”
Half a dozen suppressed rifles coughed from the forest’s edge, and the sentries on the fort’s landward-facing eastern wall collapsed out of sight. Every one of them had been facing inward, across the fort’s interior. No doubt they’d been trying to see what was happening out on the water. Jema warriors and the handful of Terran militia he had with him sprinted across the killing ground of cleared land towards the base of the wall. They had almost made it, when a handful of Kaerin warriors appeared atop the ramparts and started firing down into his people. Gunfire erupted next to him and from further along the edge of the forest as the Kaerin reinforcements went down.
He brought up his own rifle and swept the top edge of the lantern-lit wall. He fired at another large group that appeared, his fire joining that of others. He could see additional figures moving, keeping their heads just below the wooden parapet. They were learning. It was taking too long. Several more Kaerin risked standing long enough to fire down at the base of their walls; one threw a torch over the walls. Even from where he was, concealed within the woods, he could see the forms of his people backlit by the burning torch.
Finally, first one group, then the others were streaming away from the walls.
“Now!” Hyrika’s voice shouted over the radio.
“Cover! Now!” he spoke back, using the language they’d been trained in. He thumbed the radio detonator, and three separate sections of the wall disappeared in fireballs that seared their explosion into his eyes. There should have been five explosions. How many more people had he just lost?
There was no order needed. They all surged forward as one; everyone except the six men operating the two mortars. The familiar whooompf . . . whooompf of the two tubes comforted him. They would be dropping rounds into the fort until he and nearly a hundred Jema reached the breaches they had just blown in the wall.
Tur’ma’s quarters lay adjacent to the seawall. By the time Sak’il and Lom’ata’s warriors had gained the ramparts above him and begun firing at something unseen out in the harbor, Tur’ma was standing, rifle in hand, outside his door and in violation of his orders. He was beyond caring. The ease with which these strangers had slaughtered his entire finger had left him deeply unsettled. There was something alien about the weapons he had seen and could now hear erupting from the harbor.
He spotted Fas’toal standing in the northwest tower, surrounded by a hand of runners and honor guard. Like everyone else in the fort, his bastelta’s attention was focused on the harbor. He took the stairs up the harbor wall two at a time, and reached the thick timber barricades just as the Mer’as exploded in a succession of fireballs as her powder stores were ignited. There were only two small boats out there! No larger than the landing craft they had used to row ashore against the Creight. He ducked out of instinct as the enemy boats turned back towards the seawall and accelerated faster than he thought possible. From each, a line of reddish-and-yellow fire stretched out and slammed into the wall like a salvo from an entire fist of warriors, except this salvo was continuous.
On his knees, cringing from the impact of hundreds of rounds he could feel through the timber, he looked down the length of the wall walk and could see the full complement of Sak’il’s and Lom’ata’s fingers doing the same. More than a few slain warriors were hanging over the edge of the barricade or lying in the walkway. Others had been blown clear off the wall walk and were unmoving in the gravel below. He’d seen far more enemy than could possibly be in those two tiny craft in the harbor.
He turned his head and looked across the open expanse of Sy’rane’s marshaling field to the far walls in time to see a group of warriors on the far eastern-facing wall doing the same thing he was, seeking cover. There were enemy warriors outside the far wall as well.
He glanced back down the lengths of his own wall. He sought out the small group of warriors that would indicate the presence of Sak’il or Lom’ata. With no troops of his own, he ignored the shame that welled up in him for having to seek the assistance of another Teark, and charged towards them.
He had just spotted Lom’ata when the night sky was ripped away by an explosion across the fort. He crashed to his stomach, turning to see the three massive breaches that had just been blasted in the eastern wall. The harbor was just a diversion! What enemy was this? They fought like Kaerin.
Teark Lom’ata was sitting with his back to the timber wall when he reached him. Lom’ata had taken an enemy round in the shoulder, and was directing his warriors off the wall to go meet what would surely be coming through the breaches. Lom’ata didn’t look surprised to see him there. Grimacing in pain, his fellow Teark reached out with his one good arm and gripped his bandolier of ammunition.
“Lead them, Tur’ma. Go!”
Enough of Lom’ata’s dadus overheard the exchange that by the time he reached the marshaling ground underneath the walls, he had over thirty warriors with him. Lom’ata had clearly taken losses before being hit himself. He had a clear field of view of the far wall and of the gaping, burning holes in it. The southernmost breach was nearly blocked by jagged sections of the blasted-out foundation stones. It was the other two he had to worry about. With nothing more than a wave of his arm, he charged ahead across the compound.
They’d taken just a few strides when twin gouts of fire and gravel erupted from the yard in front of them. A handful of his warriors were blown off their feet as the compound’s packed gravel was turned into deadly shrapnel. He was thrown down and covered by two warriors who were scrambling to get off of him, just as another two explosions dropped in on the compound. That time, he’d heard the whistling descent of whatever type of shell was being lobbed into the fort. This was a death trap . . .
“Follow the wall!” he screamed, and lifted his arm to the north wall as he scrambled to his feet. They had almost made it to the wall when another two shells fell, this time behind them. The first hit an empty barracks, turning the front half of it into a burning wall of kindling, riding a shock wave outward. The second detonated at the base of the northwest tower. When the fireball cleared, he could see no one standing where Bastelta Fas’toal had been. The tower was a pile of burning logs that had fallen into a shallow crater.
“Stay next to the wall,” he shouted, and led his diminished line towards the juncture of their northern wall and the breaches in the east wall. They
made the corner, and he directed a pair of warriors up the stairs. “Get me a count.”
Two more shells detonated behind them, doing nothing but blowing craters in the training yard. He knew whoever was firing those shells would be worried about hitting their assaulting troops; it was what a Kaerin commander would do when commanding Kaerin troops. If they’d been subject clans assaulting, he or any Kaerin would have kept up the fire throughout the assault.
Were they up against other Kaerin? There had not been a Kaerin civil war in over five hundred years, and that one was only whispered about among close friends one could trust. It was the only thing that made sense to him; even then, he’d never heard of weapons that spit fire or boats that moved across the water faster than a bird flew. Had Lord Atan’tal’s rivalry with Lord Madral come to this? If it had, why had there been no warning from Lord Madral?
Those concerns boiled in the background of his thoughts as he situated his men behind cover. They knew their business; they weren’t going to stand in windrows of rifle lines like mindless subjects. They were Kaerin, well trained and as driven by honor as he was.
Loud explosions along the seawall brought his thoughts back into focus. He turned to see two large holes in the timber barricade; one had ripped clean through a section of the wall walk. Dead or dying warriors were still impacting the courtyard as he watched. Clearly, the small boats in the harbor had some sort of cannon as well as their magical rapid-firing guns. The holes in the seawall had not been well aimed, with the exception of the one that had impacted the wall walk; they’d left jagged, smoking holes well off the ground. No enemy was going to be coming through them.
Much closer, gunfire erupted on the far side of his eastern wall. He recognized the steady staccato drum beat of the fire. It was of the same type that had killed his own men. Now, it was closer, and it sounded like there was much more of it. One of the warriors he’d sent up the wall smashed into the ground a few feet from him. The top half of his torso was riddled with bullet holes. He glanced up, and the second warrior was dead, his face hanging off the wall walk staring down at them.
New Shores: The Eden Chronicles - Book Three Page 36
