The Fleet Book 2: Counter Attack (13 page)

“We agree that you Fleetmen have the power. We Nedge will not act against you.”

It was a weak sort of statement, and not entirely satisfactory. But I had to be content with it. I radioed Bar Kochba later in the day, reporting on the conversation.

“The other commanders have reported much the same thing,” Bar Kochba said. “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble from the Nedge. I’m getting reinforcements sent down. It should take us no more than a week or two to kill or capture the remaining Khalia.”

Ben Kochba Was a little hasty in saying that, and I do his reputation for sagacity no good by quoting him. A month later we were still mopping up the Khalia. A month after that—so unexpected are the fortunes of war—we found ourselves on the defensive.

VI.

People get the wrong idea when they refer to the Khalia as weasels. Yes, the resemblance is there, the long, supple body, lustrous fur, pointed snout. But there is something ludicrous about the idea of a weasel four or five feet tall. And the Khalia were not ludicrous. In their style of attack, they were more reminiscent of wolverines, pound for pound perhaps the fiercest fighter in the animal kingdom.

The Khalia had great powers of concealment and a sure instinct for camouflage. On the attack they had a talent for instant acceleration. Individually, they loved to do the unexpected. A Khalian brave might come at you in great bounds, or he might slither toward you like an impossibly agile snake. Tactically, it was impossible to predict what they would do next.

They soon gave up any attempt at fighting in formation. It was a style that didn’t suit them. They were individualists, as I was to learn, with a taste for fighting that reminded me of stories of the ancient Norse berserkers. Their skill with handguns and edged weapons was uncanny. It took a trained swordman among humans to be a match for a Khalian brave with his wavy-edged swords and his foot-knives. They would come boiling up almost at our feet while we were on patrol, or dart at us from alleyways in the cities of the Nedge. Their aim was to inflict casualties. They gave us much more trouble than we bargained for. They gave us so much trouble that the occupation of Target became a matter of concern to the officers of the Fleet, who dreaded having to send the casualty lists back to the home planets of the deceased. Almost a dozen levies were involved in the occupation of Target. Unless matters could be turned around rather dramatically, there was a real problem of a collapse on the part of the Alliance ground troops.

We were hampered in dealing with the enemy by our concern for the indigenous population. They were not our enemies. But they were not our friends, either, and somehow the Khalia were able to move among them, were often concealed by them. The Nedge didn’t like the Khalia, but they didn’t turn them in, either. I learned the reason for this later.

It was a merciless war, in the cities and villages, in the countryside. The strain on our forces was so great that there was a danger Fleet Command would withdraw us, because our casualties had grown alarming, if not to us, then certainly to the constituencies on our home planets. And it is the peoples of our home planets, after all, who vote the funds that keep the Fleet in operation. If the constituency thinks an operation is being bungled, politicians distance themselves from it. They may disregard strategic interests and give up too soon, hoping to achieve, easy, bloodless victories in a different sector.

Unfortunately, wars are not necessarily won by those who lose the least men. Some of the greatest victories of past wars have been won by the army that stayed in the field longest, that kept on going, stayed cohesive longer than the other, in spite of perhaps equal casualties. And wars have been lost by the timid—their prototype being those Carthaginian merchants who hesitated too long to supply Hannibal in Italy, who wanted easy “strategic” victories.

It’s a difficult problem because simple pugnacity and stubbornness isn’t enough. You have to be the judge of when to move back, when to stick it out at all costs. It calls for a nice genius, knowing when to dodge and run, like Fabius Cunctator, and when to pound home the attack at all costs, like his successor, Scipio Africanus, at the walls of Carthage. These two great generals, both of whom saved Rome, did so one by retreating without a blush when that was the thing to do, the other pressing relentlessly for final victory when that-was the thing to do.

We on the front line that was everywhere on the planet and nowhere felt that there was something important to be won here. You could tell it in the desperation with which the Khalia fought us. There was nothing specific we could point to, nothing for the computers to quantify, but despite that you can’t discount the gut feeling that something important is going on, something which may take a little while to clarify, but will prove more than worth the effort. And we also felt that it was a test of wills, and that the final victory would be determined by who put forth the greater effort in imposing his will.

It has never been revealed just how badly the tide ran against us. We managed to hang on, concealing our losses from Earth, lying about our victories. It was as though we could see acted out, here in this single planet, issues which affected the rise and fall of whole species, factors of determination and will which determined which race would live and which would die.

In the end, the decisions of the bird people’s guilds were crucial. They were frankly in doubt as to whether to exchange rule by the Khalia for rule by us. Because that’s what it came down to. We tried with a straight face to promise them freedom, but finally we couldn’t do it. We had to tell them the truth, because we couldn’t help giving ourselves away when we tried to lie. We of the Alliance were going to take over Target, at least for the immediate future. The planet was important to us. Because the Khalia had been here for many years, there was a lot we could learn about them here. And, also, this planet was the last known assembly place for the Khalian raiders. It was from here that we expected to pick up the clues that would lead us to their real home, the planet where the power came from, the head of the snake, so to speak, so that we could finally cut it off. But to do that we had to solve the riddle of the Khalia on Target. And it was a bird-man, at last, who provided the key.

VII.

It was two months after our landing on Target that I met the young Nedge named Tsk Otaî, and whom I nicknamed Woodpecker. He was taller than most of his people, with a red crest on his head that stood up when he became excited. He was a Master in the Tinker’s Guild. I knew that this was a considerable accomplishment for one so young, and I congratulated him on his rank.

“There was considerable opposition within the guild to granting me Master status,” he-said, “But I demonstrated my mastery of the Seven Manipulations, and the Three Ways of Joining Material, and this in front of the full assembly of masters. So they had no choice. But they made me pay dearly for the honor.”

“How so?” I wanted to know.

Otaî told me that his home was about two hundred miles from here, in an area of steep little hills and boulder filled ravines, close to the Karnaian Wilderness. It was a favorite hiding place for the Khalian guerillas, who could not be run down in its sun-beaten stone labyrinths. The Khalian irregulars visited the Nedge from time to time, demanding food in the manner of guerillas throughout the universe. One day, however, one of the Khalian fighting bands came to the Nedge with a different request: they wanted a Master Tinker to accompany them to their camp and assist them in repairs.

“And you were chosen?” I guessed.

“Against my will.”

“But l thought guild members are free to accept or refuse any job that comes along?”

“That’s generally true. But in this case, the Khalia invoked the code of sinik-duty, and the Elders of the Guild had to comply. But they should have chosen by lot among the Masters, rather than merely ordering me to go because I was the youngest.”

“What is sinik-duty?” I asked.

“It is a period of labor which an overlord can demand from a guild. It is considered a sacred obligation.”

“But the Khalia aren’t your overlords,” I pointed out. “Not any longer.”

“True. But they were armed and desperate, and you Alliance people were far away, and all in all we decided not to argue the point.”

“So they took-you away with them?”

“They did indeed. To their hidden encampment. There I did the sort of simple tinkering of which the Khalia themselves seem incapable, fixing simple mechanical contrivances such as hinged doors; and all the time bearing with stoicism their rude and boisterous behavior and living for the day when I would be released.”

“That day seems to have arrived,” I said, “since here you are now in our camp.”

Woodpecker shook his head gloomily. “They granted me a week’s leave so that I could go home and put my affairs into order. But I must return to them, hateful though the prospect is to me.”

“Why return?” I asked him. “There’s nothing they can do to you here.”

“You don’t understand. The Guild stands surety for me. If I don’t return as I promised, they will have to send someone else. In that case, they would expel me from the Guild.”

“Why not take up some other line of work?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “Even if I desired to do that—which I don’t—it is impossible. We Nedge are born into our Guilds. One without a Guild affiliation is considered dead. He would have to scratch out living alone, staying well away from the habitations of the people. No female would ever look upon me again. My children, if I had any, would curse my name.”

“Is there no way out?” I asked.

“Only one. The Khalia must themselves terminate my contract. But the contract is void if the Khalian chief who claimed my sinik-duty were to die.”

I pondered. “You couldn’t kill him yourself, could you?”

Woodpecker gave a short whooping laugh. “
Me,
kill Tostig Manslayer, leader of the war band to whom I am indentured? I wouldn’t be capable of it. Only members of The Guild Without a Nest are permitted to kill, and they have turned me down.”

“So you come to me with your request.”

“It is your business to kill the Khalia. You have told us so often enough.”

I thought about it, and my thoughts were not pleasant ones. I had no confidence in these bird-people, who helped us only grudgingly and seemed fonder of their murderous masters than they were of us. The possibility of treachery here could not be discounted. It was a long journey into the Karnaian Wilderness, through difficult country that afforded a determined enemy many chances to set up a devastating ambush. I really was not justified in leading my men so far afield, and on such a dubious enterprise.

I was about to turn Woodpecker down. But then he said one more thing, and this made me decide differently.

“I will also be able to show you,” he said, “the place where the Khalia fix their spaceships.”

That got my full attention. The location of the Khalian factories, their supply warehouses, and refitting yards was a mystery we had been trying to solve since landing on the planet. We had destroyed their spaceport, but still their ships appeared from time to time, to hit and run, dodging away before we could scramble a pursuit, going to ground somewhere in the wilderness that made up the greater part of Target.

“You have actually seen this place?” I asked him.

He cluck-rattled in the affirmative. “I have seen it. And it is vast, vast.”

“Tell me where,” I said, “We will call up the Fleet.”

“I could not tell you even if I wanted to,” Woodpecker said. “It is somewhere in the Karnaian Wilderness, and I can find it, but maps are beyond my capabilities. And besides, I must personally see Tostig Manslayer dead in order to Claim termination of the contract.”

I thought about it. If true, it would be a matter of the utmost importance. And the opportunity of wiping out a Khalian war band was nothing to be taken lightly, either. It could mean the beginning of the end of the difficult war on Target. And if I could locate their factories, find the places where they rearmed, that would be worth almost any risk.

It was nothing I would care to expose my men to. And anyhow, this called for a scouting mission-for stealth and secrecy, because the idea would be to find the location and then get back and direct the attack upon it. It was a job for one man, and, a guide.

And it was in my mind, too, that if I could kill this Khalian leader, this Tostig, that would be, a great blow as well.

“Wait for me here,” I told Woodpecker. “I’ll be back in an hour. Tell me, Otaî, do you believe in a supreme being?”

“Of course,” he told me, “The god of my guild is called Thalatak.”

”Not even Thalatak will save you if you have lied to me,” I said, in suitably impressive tones, I hoped.

VIII.

Four days later, Woodpecker and I were camped in a narrow dried-out riverbed just a few miles within the Karnaian Wilderness. We had taken a lightweight Scout skimmer as far as I dared to go, flying mostly at night at only a few feet above the ground in order to escape surveillance.

We had hidden the vehicle away on the edge of the Karnaian and proceeded on foot. We picked our way through a rocky wilderness, a high desert of tumbled stone and shale. The wind screamed and tore at us without letup, and I was thankful I had brought goggles when the quick, deadly dust storms came boiling up out of the south. I had left Gideon in charge of the squad, and had sworn him to secrecy as to my destination. When I told him about it, he was eager to come along, and put up several good arguments as to why he should be taken. When I turned him down he had accused me of trying to hog all the glory. But it wasn’t that at all. I had the fear that I was on a fool’s errand, and I wouldn’t risk the lives of any of my men on it.

We had been discussing the Khalia, Woodpecker and I. Although he purported to despise them, there was always an odd air of grudging reverence in his voice when he discussed them. Whereas when he talked about us humans, his tone was somewhere between bantering and scornful. I had noticed this in other of the Nedge, and had put it down to sheer cussedness. But now I was growing exasperated, and decided I’d really heard all I wanted to about the Khalia and their lordly qualities.