IronStar (58 page)

In another minute, the last of the
habitations scrolled back under their wings and they were lofting southward
across plains dotted by farms and occasional dwellings. Ensign Piersall began a
turn to the right and then swung them far to the left in a figure-eight loop.

“Ma’am, do you want to raster-scan
the whole city, or…?”

“Yes, Margaret, eventually. First let’s
overfly that palace building, see what we pick up, then work west in
north-south passes.”

“Aye, ma’am.” The shuttle rolled
right again and leveled out of the turn with the palace directly ahead and due
north. As they passed over the big building, the intercom chimed and a voice
said:

“Bingo, Marg. There must be a whole
rabbit warren under that pile of stone. GPR’s picking up tunnels, metal
artifacts all over, and there’s a good solid NMR trace for iridium and osmium.
And titanium and aluminum. And Kruss organometallics. Unless the indigs have
just invented hullmetal and aluminum smelting, that’s your lizzie outpost.”

“That’s
one
of them, Mac.
Stay sharp.”

“
Two
, actually, about forty
meters apart, both deep under the palace building. Looks like living quarters
and lab, and a storeroom I’d guess, from the variety of traces.

“There’s another trace, a hullmetal
door off the roof of the palace, and what I’d call a support bay for a small
flyer, although it’s empty at the moment. And a conduit connecting it to the
larger room below, and I think that’s a comm antenna beside it.”

Another forty-five minutes of
flying up and down over the city in a grid pattern produced no additional
evidence of alien presence, but did reveal a comprehensive sewer system, a
skirt of small houses crowded together, a manufacturing district, also
extensive shipbuilding, warehousing, and native military presence. By the tenth
low-level pass the population seemed to be on the verge of panic, surging and
milling about like barnyard chickens under a hawk. The military forces appeared
to be collecting in clumps, but with no ground target, they had no place to
rally. The longer they overflew the city, the glummer Captain Schmado seemed to
get.

“Are you not glad to see your
homeland, Captain?” Kirrah asked.

“No, Warmaster. I am amazed by your
Regnum’s power, but I have lost my love for O’dai’s king and his warmaking. I
do not expect to live long beyond our arrival.”

“You are serving Talam and have my
protection, Schmado. You will be safe in the shuttle. Have you no friends or
family here?”

“Friendship with a failed
Fleet-Captain would be unwise for any O’dai, Warmaster. Family… I had a
household, a wife and two sons. I doubt any survived the King’s displeasure
over the loss of my fleet.”

“That is sad to hear, Schmado. I
hope your fortunes improve. Ok,” said Kirrah, “…let’s drop in for a visit.
Margaret, put us down in the garden area just fifty meters outside the north
entrance to that palace. It’s about the only open level patch near the main building.
Marcus, Adrianne, ready to roll as we touch.”

Whoever was manning the shuttle’s
guns put an infrared targeting laser on the indicated area, which showed up
like a beacon to those on the flight deck. Ensign Piersall lit the belly
thrusters and lowered the landing gear in a reverse of the process they had
used taking off. Although the LAS was equipped with forward-firing thrusters,
most pilots made it a point of pride to kill forward speed by pulling the
ship’s nose up and balancing on the belly and tail thrusters, then pitching
down nose-level and descending on belly thrusters alone.

Kirrah watched with professional
appreciation while her young pilot jockeyed the main throttles down while
twisting their twin T-shaped handles to bring up the vertical lift. As before,
she nailed the landing perfectly, and the ramp was cycling down even as the
whirlwind of ash and burned leaves was settling around them. Outside,
courtiers, servants and a few guards were scurrying for cover from the
formidable downwash. In seconds, the Marines were formed up in a double line
outside the ramp, and Kirrah and Peetha descended like visiting royalty. They
stood on the scorched earth of the gardens facing the imposing ten meter tall
arched doorway in the palace’s twenty-meter high north wall.

A horn sounded, and the heavy
double bronze doors swung open to disgorge a line of O’dai crossbowmen and
swordsmen, in the scarlet and yellow uniform Captain Schmado had told them
indicated the King’s guard. The heavy doors boomed shut behind them and they
deployed into a double line between the shuttle and the palace. A voice sounded
in Kirrah’s helmet on the Unit General comm channel:

“All units, Cavanaugh,” said the
voice she now recognized as coming from the shuttle’s ‘Guns’ station: “Multiple
hostiles approaching on foot through gates in north and west walls, respond?”

“Guns, Warden. Negative response.
Unless you see something dangerous, let them test us. Being
ignored
can
be very discouraging to attackers.” Kirrah appreciated Marcus’ advice and stood
at attention at the end of the line of Marines. The ramp lifted and closed into
place behind them, sealing the craft in hullmetal and polycorundite. Through
her suit’s external pickups she could hear orders being shouted and see men
deploying in flanking positions along both sides of their line. At a shouted
command, all the O’dai archers raised their crossbows and loosed simultaneously
at the Regnum formation.

With a tremendous clatter, sixty or
seventy heavy crossbow quarrels rattled and shattered on the Regnum combat
armor. At each impact, the fine mesh of active hullmetal links caught and
stopped the iron point, and a subskin of slo-flo turned a ten or fifteen
centimeter disc of armor into a rigid plate for a quarter-second, dissipating the
impact harmlessly. Kirrah smiled over at Peetha through their transparent
polycorundite helmets. The Wrth girl seemed to be enjoying herself immensely,
and even grinned back. Kirrah set her suit’s comm to translate to O’dai through
its external speakers:

“Kirrah Warmaster greets the brave
O’dai guards and bestows her blessings on all here. As a gift to O’dai, Talam
is returning some of the injured from the Nineteenth O’dai Imperial Army,
including Prince Paedako, Fourth Son of His Astral Majesty King Oka’sse. King
Oka’sse is invited to appear, and greet his returning soldiers.”

After what to Kirrah seemed an
unprofessionally long time, the O’dai finished reloading their crossbows and
let loose another volley, with similar negative results. When a third volley
scattered harmlessly from the shuttle itself, the O’dai swordsmen marched
forward in a phalanx. They approached Kirrah’s formation, hesitated a moment at
the total lack of response from their opponents, then began swinging huge
overhand sword strokes against the armored figures. Heavy blades thudded and
ground ineffectively against hullmetal cloth or bounced from polycor helmets.
Men crowded one another attempting to find some opening in the defensive
clothing.

Finally one large guardsman stepped
up to one of the bigger Marines and gave a sharp tug on the man’s heavy beamer,
which was carried at port-arms. The Marine twisted his weapon, poked the big
O’dai’s sharply in the belly with its butt, and returned to port-arms.

Kirrah spoke again through her suit’s
external speakers. “O’dai have never been known for their hospitality, but
Kirrah Warmaster grows impatient with this impoliteness. The next O’dai to
attempt harm will pay.” The same large guardsman, breathing deeply and
straightening from his bent posture, stepped around in front of her. He leered
at her, said something untranslatable, placed one hand on her helmet’s face and
pushed, hard. She stepped back one pace, then swung forward and delivered a
swift, vicious kick to the man’s shin. The rigid toe of her combat boot made a
visible dent in his armor’s shinplate, and he howled and went down holding his
ankle.

“Must we spill your blood before
you see you are wasting your efforts?” she demanded. “The time of fighting
between Talamae and O’dai is over. We want nothing from you except to return
your own injured soldiers. And to have the small lizard-beings depart from your
midst, the ones you call ‘Heaven-messenger’, whose real name is Kruss, which
means devourer of humans. Who will receive the O’dai prisoners from me? They
need care.”

Another barked command and gesture,
which allowed Kirrah to note the identity of the commander, and three of the
guards crouched low and reached for Peetha, the smallest of the suited figures.
Ok, that’s enough Mr. Nice Guy
… Kirrah drew her beamer and traced a
white-hot point across the nearest man’s wrist. At her motion, Peetha drew her
Kruss field knife and struck like a snake at the man reaching for her. The
blade slid between his center and ring finger and continued, splitting his
right hand longitudinally from fingers to wrist. He shrieked almost soundlessly
and fell back, cradling the two halves of his right hand in his left, blood
pouring from the gash. Kirrah’s target was on his knees staring at the
still-smoking red wound across his wrist. The third man reached for Peetha’s
ankle and prepared to heave her off her feet, but the girl stepped forward,
locked her knees around his neck and stood like a tree, trapping him face down
on his hands and knees in front of her. Kirrah noted with approval her
protégé’s use of the suit’s technology to lock her assailant in place. Two more
guards reached to assist their trapped fellow, but stopped warily as Kirrah’s
weapon swung to track them. She keyed the Unit Command channel and asked:

“Marcus, do you suppose we could
use the shuttle’s beamers against those big doors? It would stop a lot of this
useless injury, and sooner or later someone’s going to get killed if they keep
trying to attack us.”

“Well, we
have
been
attacked,” the Marine Lieutenant replied. “I suppose a non-lethal demonstration
would be within the ‘minimum response’ terms of engagement. Guns, you have a
clear shot at those big doors?”

“Guns, that’s affirmative, sir. You
want one big bang or a slow burn?” Kirrah switched back to external speakers
and let the translator speak for her in the O’dai tongue:

“Kirrah Warmaster is offended by
these O’dai’s inhospitality,” she said. “Perhaps someone more courteous will
greet us if we knock on your door.” She switched to Unit General channel and
replied “One shot, if you please, don’t overdo it. I want pieces for
souvenirs.” Lieutenant Warden signaled his squad to move to one side of the
beam path, opening a space between them and the nearest O’dai swordsmen. A
streamlined turret extruded from the top of the shuttle near the front of the
tailfin. Many of the O’dai turned to stare at the pair of eight-centimeter
black muzzles that swung to point over their heads.

Kirrah added, “Cycle a warning
flash first, Guns, no need to blind these men.”

“Aye, Ma’am,” the voice replied. In
a few seconds, a thin flash of bright yellow light sprang out in twin lines
from the turret. Even through her closed eyelids and polarized helmet, Kirrah
could
feel
the intense strobe of brilliant yellow that followed, then
almost immediately heard a tremendous crash to her left. Bits of molten brass
and shards of stone fell among the group, spattering some O’dai and setting
more than one cloth uniform afire. The silence that filled the courtyard was
broken only by the sound of three or four shocked guardsmen beating out the
minor blazes. When the smoke cleared, one of the bronze doors was visible
hanging by one hinge, bent and with a meter-wide bite taken out of it. The
other door was lying in pieces all up and down the inside hallway, the outer
steps, and scattered across half the courtyard.

Kirrah stepped forward to the man
she had identified as the commander of the swordsmen. Peetha released her
kneeling captive and swung in at her commander’s side.

“You!” Kirrah exclaimed, half a
meter from the startled swordsman. “I am Kirrah Warmaster of Talam, and I am
tired of playing with fools. All your lives are coins in my hand, to spend or
keep as I choose. Now if you cannot find me a person to receive twenty of your
wounded countrymen, say so and I will look in another part of the city. But
stop
bothering
me before I kill all of you out of aggravation!” The man
stepped back, as much from the sheer intensity of her cold anger as the words
coming from her suit’s speakers, or the violence just visited on his palace.
Another soldier at one side, behind a wavering rank of crossbowmen, spoke up:

“We will send for an emissary. Do
not move from this place.” At his orders, one of the bowmen scurried across the
courtyard and out through the gate in the inner wall, and another made his way
gingerly among the still-hot debris, up the steps, through the shattered brass
doors and disappeared down the hallway. Kirrah stood and waited perhaps five
minutes, then a group of servants came down the same hallway supporting a lean
black-robed old man tottering on a cane. He continued on his own, picking his
way down the debris-littered steps and across the ruined garden to stand a few
meters from the group. His blue eyes were a bit rheumy but steady, his thin
reedy voice was audible behind the translator’s neutral over-voice.

« I am Parsh’ap, tutor to Prince
Paedako. If he is here and injured, I wish to see him. »

“Thank you, Parsh’ap. I am Kirrah
Warmaster of Talam. One moment please.” Kirrah switched to the Unit Auxiliary
channel. “Irshe, please bring the wounded out, the Prince first.” Seconds later
the shuttle’s door opened and that young man, with Irshe holding one arm,
stepped down the ramp and crossed the few meters to where Kirrah stood. Her
suitcom chimed again, the shuttle’s comm system repeating the signal from above
on the Unit General channel: