Starquest scourge of the.., p.9
Starquest: Scourge of the Spaceways, page 9
Radios dead, these spotters were connected to the missile towers by triply-shielded telephone cables snaking awkwardly behind their helmets in zero-gee across the expanse of the hull.
Meanwhile, several swivel guns on the Fame's Fancy were rotating to target at the Dog-Faced Fortune. However, the two hulls were so close to each other that the Fancy's deck-guns could not depress enough for a clean shot. One or two blasts flashed like lightning, and one shot struck the target, but the other struck her own hull.
Railguns from the equator of the Fancy fired a volley of pellets, but struck containers of bullion carried outside the life support hulls of the Fortune, doing no real damage. The gold bricks piled in Captain Vulk's belly units acted as armor, and perhaps were heated and melted a bit in their hermetic containers, but absorbed any radioactive particles.
Captain Vulk's screens were still at full strength, unlike Clytemnestra's, so only her hullplates ruptured under her own gunfire, spilling water in a bright cloud into space, boiling and condensing into snow as it expanded.
Clytemnestra's next message ran: "Attacking ship! I challenge you to wager of battle! You seek my prize? If I ignite, your loss."
Athos sent his third message: "Accepted. Space-guns and space-axes only. If you will be kind enough to provide the life support?" And he ordered his gun crews to cease fire, and his unexploded missiles he signaled to decelerate and stand down.
5. Boarding Action
The Devil's Delight now hove alongside and grappled with tractor beams. She expanded the globe of her shields to include all three vessels.
There was now nothing preventing the Fame's Fancy from sending a beam or missile into the Devil's Delight's unshielded hull. On the bridge, Athos waited with no outward sign of worry, inwardly saying a nervous prayer.
But then the Fame's Fancy lowered her remaining, half-flickering shield.
From vents and environment-locks piercing the great globular ship, a cloud of snow erupted, but soon condensed as the shields surrounding all three ships trapped and heated it. In a moment, the hull was awash with oxygenated water.
From the Dog-Faced Fortune now came snaking a docking tube, from whose environment locks emerged the boarding party vanguard: first came a host of Xiphians, sailfish shapes coated in thick armor, sleek as living submarines, moving easily and masterfully through the weightless watery environment.
After them, more awkwardly, adhesion-field boots clamping and unclamping with every step, from the Devil's Delight came the bipedal forms of the savages of the Fears-No-Death tribe. Their space armor was painted and adorned with vivid, barbaric motifs, including the seven-branched fire-tree of their nameless sky-god, and boar-spear shape of the sky-god's wide winged warrior prince. Holograms of feathers and flames gushed from helmets; images of scowling horse-skulls shimmered atop facemasks.
Also from the Devil's Delight came Athos himself, wearing space armor brighter and gaudier than even the gaudiest barbarian, adorned with eye-dazzling images of the crosshatch patterns and arabesques seen on a playing card, with a repeated motif of black three-leaf clovers. In his hands were the lance and tomahawk his savage friends had taught him how to use: they would not have countenanced his failing to fight in the front ranks.
After him came a number of roughnecks, carrying hatchets, spikes and space-axes.
In answer, a group of slender figures in sleek silvery armor emerged from several airlocks in the hull, and rose into view, carrying rapiers and light pikes, armed with slim, long-barreled fowling pieces.
Radios down, there were no words exchanged as battle was joined. The slender silver figures darted and swam through the weightless water with greater agility than the bipeds, but could not outswim the mighty Xiphian marines.
In the watery environment, space-pistols were even less effective than normal. Heat dissipated and charges were grounded by the water, and rare was the shot that was not deflected by the belt-shields every combatant wore. No fighter alive was as fierce and relentless as Tisquantum's spearmen, nor as strong and swift as the Xiphian swordfish.
It was a hideous, ungainly battle, as if fought between two deaf and mute armies. Some sounds carried through the hydrosphere and helmets, but only enough to make a dim, rushing murmur without meaning. Even the thunderclap of energy weapons firing point-blank, normally deafening, now made but a dull pop of noise.
The defenders worked with more cohesion, and so held out longer than might have been expected, but in a matter of moments the water was red with clouds of blood. The survivors, leaving the wounded behind, pulled themselves back down into the airlocks, and slammed the hatches after. Those on deck who had covered the escape threw their weapons down and raised their slender hands in surrender.
6 . Laws of War
Athos raised his bloody lance and gave the signal. A trio of Xiphians came forward with a breaching charge, which they began affixing to the sealed airlock door.
Once the breaching charges were in place, Athos waited. He made sure the first charge was set to go off at the flight deck level, where internal pressure doors were certain to prevent environment loss throughout more than one bulkhead. He did not want a dead ship, after all.
What would Clytemnestra do? He knew nothing of her, but two facts. First, she was a slaver and a pirate. Second, she was an Ellyllon, a race not known for suicidal warrior pride.
But nothing was certain. His ruffians stood by the charges, plungers in hand, faceplates turned toward him awaiting his signal. Athos could blow breaches into the hull, unleashing a decompression typhoon, and storm inside. Nothing was stopping him. It was the logical next step.
But it would have been against the rules of war. By rights, the retreat had ended the challenge, and Clytemnestra was honor bound to yield.
How much honor did she have?
For as soon as he ignited the breaching charges, her logical next step was to open fire on the shields surrounding the three ships, or open fire on the Devil's Delight maintaining that shield, in hopes of sweeping the boarding party away into space; and, if that failed, to ignite a warhead point-blank against her own hull, which would dent the ship, but destroy the boarding party without doubt. And the next logical step after that and after that was the inevitable mutual destruction of the three ships, who were too close together to use alpha-level weapons and survive.
Or so the logic of total war would say.
The logic of chivalry said otherwise. Which would prevail?
Yet again, Athos had gambled his life, and the lives of the men under him — cutthroats and savages as they might be — on a hope and a prayer.
It was a solid hope, or so he thought. Being a man of skeptical mind, he was never sure if his were solid prayers, however. Perhaps they were not being heard with favor. Perhaps there was none to hear.
Being of a skeptical nature, he had his doubts. But these days when death was always at his elbow made him much more willing to send words to heaven than ever he had been as a midshipman at the academy, when chapel was a requirement. Now, when it was not required, he found it was becoming a habit.
He said another one, short and quick, because it seemed an apt time.
Athos now looked up, or, rather, away from the ship. He stood in a cloud of blood, red spear in hand, weightless, clinging by adhesion boots to the wall of an enemy ship, surrounded by murky water slowly turning into snow. In the distance, with the bright arm of the galaxy behind it, no bigger than a one-pence coin held at arm's length, he could see the smoky, reddish disk of the black sun. It was lurking, dead but not quiet, in the center of the star system. It seemed, that moment, like what mystics of old held: the throne of a dark potentate of power bent on misery, envying and hating the stars that still burned.
And yet, the stars beyond were so vast, that even the unimaginable mass of a dead star was less than a grain of sand, less than a mote.
Whether there was any spirit in the stars who heard his heart, at that moment, his hope was answered.
Silently, with no fuss or fanfare, the image of the Red Roger, projected holographically overhead from the conning tower of the Fame's Fancy, flicked, went out, and was replaced by a white banner.
It was the signal of surrender.
A moment later, the airlock valve cranked open. Athos ordered the wounded gathered up, and entered as victor.
Chapter 4: Name Of Fire
1. The Imperial Monster
Sixteen years ago, not long after he had slain a cyborg assassin with a broken flagpole and saved the teenaged Imperial princess, the newly-promoted centurion of the Empire gained a new name and lost a little piece of the purity of his patriotic fervor.
It happened in this way:
The charging monster was bulky, slablike, massively built, running on short, stubby legs at twenty-five miles an hour. The heavy head took up one third of the body's length. The neck was massive and immobile, rising to a hump three feet off the ground. The neck muscles were powerful enough to gore a full-size horse, break ribs, catch the corpse as it toppled, lift the horse into the air and throw it aside.
The tusks were dripping blood. The oversized head was coated in blood. The hindquarters were puny, the tail a twig. The thing seemed disproportioned and absurd, and would have been comical, had it not been so absurdly hard to kill.
Centurion Thret Ansteel (as he was now called) had leaped clear of the saddle as the horse was killed under him, landing on the far side of a fallen log. The bolt from the blade of his boar-spear bounced off the thick hide of the monster as it reared and spun back toward him. The ricochet slathered the log with fire, igniting the dry wood.
Fear of flame did not slow the monster down. Its deep-set set eyes were red pebbles of rage, and it squealed like a steamwhistle. It was able to jump four feet into the air. It cleared the flaming log with a foot to spare, and bore down on him.
He set the butt of his boar-spear against his rear foot, gripping the spearshaft as he had learned in bayonet practice, and braced himself.
The monster, eye aflame, in its rage to maul him, threw itself on the point of his weapon. Human strength would not have pierced that thick, leathery hide, but the power of the brute could and did. It attempted to run up the shaft of the spear and gore him, but the wide cross-guard slammed against the creature's breastbone. Its massive forepaws tore at the ground, tossing soil and ripping up rocks.
He was shoved back, and his boots scraped soil and grass. The spearshaft bent dangerously, groaning. If it broke, the beast would be upon him, and the tusks would rip him open. With straining hands and aching arms, he forced the spear back into line, teeth clenched, flesh crawling with sweat.
He pulled the trigger again and again, releasing bolts into the chest cavity. Flashes of light shined in its throat and eyesockets as its innards were roasted.
Down it fell, mouth still snapping, legs still twitching. The sound of its death was deafening and would return to him in dreams in weeks to come.
Sir Orgulus in his black garb arrived on his black war steed, which pranced as nimbly as a dancer, saying, "Well struck! But don't overcook it."
And Orgulus fired three bolts from his own boar-spear into the skull of the creature, who was still kicking and squealing. The wonderful scent of roast pork filled the air.
He who had recently been Decurion 2-10-ZL, called Tout Enzeyel, was now 3-10-ZL, called Thret Ansteel, was ashamed to find the strength of his knees unknit. Exhausted, leaning on his spear, he slumped to the grass, knelt, groaned, fell prone, rolled. There he lay, staring up at the sky, panting. He did not answer Sir Orgulus.
They were at the edge of a small copse of yellow-leafed aspen trees overlooking a wide, flat meadowland of tawny grass, dotted with buttercups and goldenrod and sunflowers. A trio of dim suns, each as golden as a new doubloon, hung at dawn, noon, and dusk, so the hour was the brightest this twilight world knew.
No sun was strong enough to dazzle the eye, but at second noon, at this latitude, the combined light was bright enough to cast triple shadows on the ground.
The night hours of this pleasant world were short, the heat was never oppressive. The dawn of elfin dimness lasted until first noon, when the second sun joined the first and painted the world in a half-light of lion gold. Only when the second sun reached noon, and the third sun rose, but before the first sun set, was the landscape fully bright and all the gold leaves burned like burnished armor; but once the first sun sank, the melancholy half light of the long afternoon lasted until the lingering twilight of restful hours of sunset.
The huge and single moon, Pomum, was forever painted with two nested crescents of light, with slices brighter or darker as the zones of overlapping light moved across maria and mountains of each metallic hemisphere in monthly orbit. The lunar landscape facing Imperiala was always lit by at least two suns striking different angles, even when the third sun was in conjunction.
Because he was on his back staring upward, Ansteel saw Lord Brandoch Regulus, brilliant in his bejeweled jacket, riding his horse down from the sky. His stallion had been equipped with antigravity horseshoes and flight barding, and the security circuit had whisked rider and steed into the air when the monster charged, while Brandoch reeled and cursed and tried to reverse the circuit.
Brandoch now came to ground, and his horse reared and plunged, shaking the plumes of its headdress, as if to show an annoyance at being snatched up into the air equal to that of its master. Brandoch was fantastically overdressed, with his leather hunting jacket embroidered over with floral designs studded with emerald and green beryl, onyx and black diamonds. Overlapping scales of lapis lazuli formed pauldrons and brassarts running across wide shoulders and down broad biceps. Jewels glittered on his left glove and on the golden bracelets on his arm. His cap was set with a coronet of gold worn at a rakish angle and set with plumes of the king-bird of paradise. In the golden light of Imperiala, his bronze skin seemed coppery red, and his dark Urnain eyes were unfathomable.
"What?" called down Lord Brandoch, flourishing his boar spear. "Finished? Am I too late for the sport?"
Sir Orgulus called back, "Not too late for the bacon." But Orgulus shot a final bolt from his boarspear into the dead creature's skull just to be sure.
Lord Brandoch dismounted and sauntered near. His gait was light-footed, like a beast of prey recently roused from languid slumber. When he came abreast of the bleeding horse that the monster had gored and tossed, he smiled sadly, shook his head, turned his boar-spear toward it, and fired twice.
His silent footfalls then brought him closer to Threet Ansteel. "Well done! Have the creature declared a heretic, and I suppose you two can split the bounty: a centurion and the marshal of the Deathguard! What do you say, Thret Ansteel?"
Thret Ansteel rose to his feet as the Lord Brandoch approached, but did not salute, since he had been ordered not to, not for today.
Thret Ansteel said, "Sir, with respect, what crazy terraformer seeded these monsters on the Imperial planet? And let them run loose? You should give the Deathguard Legion a bounty for removing them."
But Sir Orgulus spoke up, "Not the Legion! The legionnaire!" he turned to Lord Brandoch. "The centurion did all the work and gets any reward. Not I. I have seen how other legions operate: brass takes credit while grunts drink blood and eat mud. Stupid! No thanks! Not my unit!"
Lord Brandoch raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. "The Inquisition Deathguard are going to be famed for your fairness from now on, my good Marshal? Is that the plan?"
Orgulus smiled his mocking, charming smile. "Cruel but fair! What else can a man ask from an Inquisition? We will brainwash the people until their brains are scrubbed and shining! Spotless! Speckless! Like plates in the kitchen!" But Orgulus clapped Thret Ansteel on the shoulder, saying, "Ah! Well! There may not be a bounty for this, but I will give you hazardous duty pay. You are quite a go-getter! Show initiative! Quite a fire-starter, my man!" He turned to Lord Brandoch. "The centurion needs a better callsign!"
Seen closer, the floral designs on the jacket of Lord Brandoch were not images of flowers. It was actually a repeated mathematical pattern: a trefoil of rugose interlocking circles, looking like one small orb set atop a peach, with horns and forks issuing from them. The same horned trefoil outline was repeated around the edges of each curve, endlessly repeated ever smaller: a Mandelbrot set. This was not jewelry, but some form of Urnain instrument Lord Brandoch wore as a breastplate. It was strange to see him thus: usually he attired himself in proper courtier's uniform, and could have stood amid hominids without being noticed.
His eyes half-lidded, Lord Brandoch smiled at Orgulus. "What, is he your son, now? Shall you christen him?"
"He galloped ahead of me to engage the beast. Mad as a Weasel! He saved my steed from being gored at the cost of his own! Well, technically, at the cost of your own." Sir Orgulus laughed, "3-10-ZL should not be Thret Ansteel. Call him Flint. Well! Flint Ansteel See? Flint-and-Steel. Because he is a fire-starter."
Lord Brandoch turned his cryptic gaze on the Centurion. "Let us see what the brave young man has to say. Orgulus, call the beaters and have the bag hauled back to the lodge. We will cook it over the firepit, like you hominids did in your longhouses back in the day. No robots! Human cooks only! And have the groom transport the fallen in honor back to my estate. I will bury my faithful steed in the family plot, under an equestrian monument. To die in the hunt is as fitting as death in battle."
Sir Orgulus bowed, and took out his comdisc, calling for servants and huntsmen.
Lord Brandoch turned to the centurion. "Are you fit?"
"Uninjured, sir."
"Walk with me."
2. Deluge of Treason
Clonetrooper Ansteel and Lord Brandoch walked into the grove of golden-leafed lacy trees. Dappled shadows from overheard rustled through the canopy, and bright shafts of sunlight. Amid the slender trees, long shadows from the western sunset from the eastern sunrise ran in opposite directions.
