The Sea is Full of Stars

thing you or any of your brothers hear.”

“What name?” the creature screamed. “Who are you?”

“Jeremiah Wong Kincaid,” came the reply, just before the second claw was ripped away and the stone right hand of the idol-like creature punched through the face of the Cromlin right between the protruding eyes and extended antennae, and just kept going all the way into the brain.

It was a slow and messy way to die. The thing was still wriggling in its death throes long after Kincaid had stepped through the Gate and when the first of the curious traffic that had held up for now dared to look around and see what had happened, but not who the perpetrator might have been.

Ochoa, at the Zone Gate

It was cloudy, not only at the middle levels but across the entire sky, casting a gloomy pall over the whole central island.

The island of Bateria was dead center in the middle of Ochoa, and appeared to be one massive volcanic peak. Even underwater, where it went down almost seven kilometers into the sea bed, the great mountain called Sochi Makin, or the “Yawning God,” resembled an ancient peak of the sort that truly created the others and occasionally created new ones. It came up into the air and rose across an almost sixty kilometer stretch to a collapsed crater twenty kilometers across. Inside was still a volcanic moonscape, colorful but desolate, baked in the hot sun of the day and plunging to icy cold at night, when the elevation alone controlled its temperature. In the center, though, was a single unnatural feature, a hexagonal area planted horizontally inside the crater and resembling a bottomless hole, as indeed it was.

The Royal Palace had been hewn into the side of the crater facing the rising western sun. Its spires and colorful rock made it seem a part of the mountain itself, and it stretched several kilometers across the eastern wall and rose up above the level of the crater itself, in a departure from the Ochoan norm. The way up on that side was steep and rugged, and who would dare attack the residence of the King?

Opposite, on the western wall, was the Great Hall of the Council, where the elected representatives met a few weeks out of every year to decide what needed to be decided, and which was home to a surprisingly small bureaucracy that mostly issued permits and saw to it that fees for ships’ provi-sionings and for transit of goods were in order.

In one sense, the palace was the most vulnerable position of any important structure in the kingdom, but the Royal Guard was housed within the castle, and the National Guard—which primarily handled Customs duties, chased down disputes involving multiple districts, and the like, had received some military training and retained a military style structure—was headquartered in a village along the eastern slopes below the Grand Hall. Under normal circumstances, about 2,500 regular troops of the army and perhaps 1,500 of the National Guard were at hand, the largest single force anywhere in Ochoa and probably the only one that trained for the job.

Ochoans had fairly good eyes, but the Baron and Grand Duchess Comorro, General in Chief of the Royal Guard, as well as General Zaida, who ran the National Guard, wore special goggles with easily adjusted binocular lenses, and they could see quite well across the expanse of the crater. The Baron stood outside some small buildings just north of the Well Gate used for customs; the Grand Duchess was in full resplendent war paint and medals on the battlement atop the palace, the General on the flag court just above the entrance to the Great Hall. Each had a signalman with him or her, and each was in constant contact, all being more or less in line of sight.

A dark shape came in toward the palace below the clouds, only a few meters above the highest of the terrain, flew into the crater and landed on the Duchess’s parapet. About thirty seconds later the semaphore flashed, “The most reassuring thing about the enemy is that he follows our script.”

The Baron laughed. He wasn’t going to kid anybody that he wasn’t scared to death, but if they were forced into a fight, then so be it. The others felt the same way. In Ochoan culture it was the women who did the fighting, but he was determined that they would sing no songs of battles and bravery without his name included, even if he didn’t know whether he had the nerve to stand. The King sure hadn’t. He and half his entourage were cowering deep in the lava caves right now over on Island Biana.

He eased himself back into the special chair atop the customs house and raised his feet, which were also for all intents and purposes his hands, and placed them on the control bars and twin triggers of the rapid-fire, air- cooled machine gun. He’d had only a couple of days’ practice on one, and they ran hot and noisy and smoky and smelled awful, but he could say it didn’t take an expert to hit something with them when they put out a hundred rounds per second in a spread pattern.

The portable emplacement was similar to the permanent ones along the whole chain of castles and fortresses, designed specifically for the Ochoan anatomy and easily rotated a full 360 degrees with just a shift in body weight. In a smaller chair below him, but on the same pivot, Gia, daughter of the Lady Akua (and his) fifth wife, sat ready to feed the strips of ammunition along the belt, clear jams, and change and reload ammo canisters. Two others weren’t on the pivot but were on her level on a catwalk, and could jump in and help with any operation as needed or have new canisters ready.

There were no permanent emplacements here, in the royal center, but there were quite a number of temporary ones.

Baron Oriamin felt quite proud that the Lady Akua had not been one of those who’d refused the gun tests, but was now running the defense of their castle. It wouldn’t be an easy fight; although the castle was well-defended and extremely well-provisioned, that beach and port below was a real prize, and he worried a lot about rockets. He’d seen now what they could do.

He wished he was there, where he felt he should be, defending his home and family and the islanders who considered him their protector. He wished he had Nakitti here at his side, preferably at the next gun, but even as the partial architect of this entire plan, her status made it impossible for her to directly participate. She was only fifty meters or so away, and a matter transmission through the device called the Well Gate, it was true, but concubines did not fight. It simply wasn’t done.

“Bombardment of sixteen ports commenced,” came the word from the General’s position. Each time a courier came to either of them, the relevant news was put up as quickly as possible. “Extremely heavy fighting along the coast and in immediate inland waters. Flying creatures are being employed as rocket platforms. Much loss of life. Most fliers not engaged by enemy.”

Damn! He wanted to be with his own! It was frustrating sitting here, hearing all that, powerless to do anything, unable to know how much of his own holdings and how many of those he loved were still alive. He prayed that Castle Oriamin wasn’t one of those being engaged, but deep down he knew it was. The enemy had seen him all too publicly at the conference. But Nakitti and that bizarre Kalindan had been right. The key wasn’t in the castles nor on the beaches, the key was right here.

“Send to both positions,” he commanded his own semaphore operator. “Any word from our aerial scouts?”

He knew that if there had been, they would have told him, but he just couldn’t sit there and do nothing!

“No, Highness. No reports, but they are circling just out and above us, above the clouds. The first one that sees or hears anything will report instantly.”

“I know that!” he snapped, then caught himself. “My apologies. I would rather they just show up than sit here and hear of others bleeding while we do nothing!”

They didn’t reply. They understood. They were feeling much the same way themselves, and had families no less close back there.

The prediction had been that there would be concentrated attacks on the castles and positions controlling the best ports, leading to the set-down of enemy special military teams above which would establish siege lines. As messages came in, this appeared to be precisely what was happening, which was why the Duchess seemed so pleased. If they were operating as predicted, then the rest would develop, too. It was deviations from that prediction that would cause serious problems.

There were sudden sounds from above, reverberating across the crater.

“Sounds like thunder,” his wife commented, looking up. “I think I can see some lightning over there.”