March To The Stars

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

'Whoooeee, now this is what I call civilization!' Julian laughed as the column of troops wound its way inland from the docks. The area where they were to be sequestered was about halfway between the wharves proper and the beginning of the temple zone.

The local population had been systematically evacuated from their path, but it was clear that the roads normally swarmed with buyers and sellers. Both sides of the route were lined with temporary stalls and carts which had been hastily abandoned, probably at the behest of the staff-wielding guards who 'escorted' the humans. This area seemed to be primarily a fishmarket, but the slope gave a fair view of other boulevards, and all of them were packed with crowds.

'Still sheep to be fleece',' Poertena grunted as he shifted his pack for a better fit.

That pack was something of a legend. Its base was a standard Marine field ruck, but it had been 'expanded' by a specially formatted multi-tool into about four times its normal volume. No one was quite sure what all it contained. They knew that it did not have a table-top tester for plasma rifles, although it now contained a field expedient replacement for one. And it did not have a sink; several of the Marines had asked. Other than that, it seemed to contain anything and everything normally found in a first-class armory, including—but not limited to—plasma welders, micrometers, parts, field lathes, and even a 'tool about town' christened the 'pick pocking wrench' that was stuffed sideways through the top flap. The 'pick pocking wrench' was Poertena's tool of last resort—a meter-long Stilson adjustable. If a recalcitrant weapon failed to function to specification, or, God forbid, a suit of armor locked up, it was exposed to the 'pick pocking wrench.' Usually the piece of equipment shaped up immediately. If not, its exposure was increased until it shaped up or shipped out.

'We gonna teach 'em acey-deucy?' Denat asked. Cord's nephew had followed the company across half the world, more out of curiosity than for any other reason. Along the way, he'd proven invaluable as a natural born 'intelligence agent'—only impolite people called him a spy. And he'd proven equally valuable, of course, as Poertena's right hand man when it came to introducing people to the new concept of 'cards.'

'Nah.' The Pinopan spat. 'For t'ese pockers? We teach them canasta.'

'Oooooooo,' Julian laughed. 'That's nasty!'

'Canasta what I teach people I don' like,' Poertena said. 'Next to bridge, t'ere's nothin' worse. An' even t'ese bastards don' deserve to have bridge inflic' on t'em. I don't t'ink I like t'em much, but bridge be too nasty.'

* * *

'I don't like this, Krindi.' Erkum Pol turned the embossed plaque hung around his neck upside down and tried to read it. 'I feel like a civan in the market.'

'Get used to it,' Fain replied, watching the line of Diaspran infantry being issued the amuletlike identification badges. 'If we don't have them, we'll get arrested by the local guards for carrying illegal weapons.'

'That's another thing—I don't like all these pocking guards.' Pol peered suspiciously at the ranks of local Mardukans. The issuing ceremony was taking place in a large warehouse by the waterfront, part of a complex of four, and two walls of the warehouse were lined with Krath guardsmen.

Once everyone had been issued credentials and the area was considered secured, this warehouse and the other three would be turned over to the humans and their allies for their quarters and storage. The facility had very little going for it, but at least it was a roof, and it wasn't rocking. There was a public latrine just outside, and the locals assured them that it was capable of handling all the waste from the K'Vaernian contingent. Other than that, it would be not much better than camping out. All and all, it was in keeping with the unfriendly nature of their reception so far.

Krindi contemplated the ranks of guards for a moment, then made a gesture of negation.

'They're not anything to worry about,' he grunted. Among other things, the guards were armed only with long clubs. It was obvious that they spent most of their 'fighting' time dealing with robbers and rioters. His Diaspran infantry, by contrast, were armed with their breechloaders and still carried their bayonets. The guns were unloaded, and the bayonets were tied into their sheaths with cords, but that would take only a moment to fix.

Yet weaponry was only a part of it—and not the largest one. The veterans of The Basik's Own were survivors of the titanic clashes around Sindi, where thirty thousand Diaspran, K'Vaernian, and Vashin soldiers had smashed over three times their own number of Boman warriors. Individually, caught in a bar fight by these Krath guards, their experience might not be of any particular consequence. But in a unit, under discipline, it was questionable whether there was another fighting force on all of Marduk that was their equal.

And if there were one, these pocking Krath pussies sure weren't it.

'Not a problem,' Fain said with a quiet chuckle. 'Basik to the atul.'

* * *

'This isn't going well,' O'Casey said as she slipped down onto one of the pillows and stretched out. Julian followed her into the room, and the intel NCO looked as if he'd bitten a lemon.

'More runaround?' Roger quirked an eyebrow.

'More runaround,' O'Casey confirmed.

The meeting was small, composed of just the central command group: O'Casey, Roger, Kosutic, and Pahner, along with Julian for his intel information and Poertena to discuss supply. Even Cord and Pedi Karuse had wandered off somewhere. The difficulties O'Casey had already encountered suggested that they would have to meet again, with a larger group, if they were going to work out plans to deal with those same difficulties. But for now, it seemed wiser to discuss the bad news only with the commanders.

The bottom line was that they needed the Krath. On the K'Vaernian continent, there'd always been 'handles' they could use—differing factions they could ally with or manipulate, or alternate routes they could use to go around obstacles. Here, though, the only way to get to their objective was through the Krath, and the Krath were turning out to be not only insular and hostile, but also remarkably lacking in handles.

'There are several things going on on the surface,' she said with a sigh, 'and who knows how many in the background! Sor Teb, our low-rank greeter, is actually the head of the slave-raiding forces. Technically, that's all he is, but the reality seems to be that he's something between a grand vizier and head of the external intelligence service. He's very much playing his own game, and my guess is that he's angling to succeed the local high priest. Everyone else in the local power structure seems to think he is, as well, and there seem to me to be two camps: one against him, and one neutral.'

'No allies at all?' Roger's eyebrow quirked. 'And what does this have to do with us?'

'No obvious allies, anyway,' O'Casey replied with a headshake. 'And what it has to do with us is that he not only has some of the best forces, but he's also the most probable danger to our plans. There's also the fact that, in general, nobody else on the council is willing to make a decision unless he's present, so it might be that what's actually happening is that his plotting is so far along everybody else is just staying out of his way.'

'Guards like his troopers would probably make decent assassins,' Julian pointed out. 'And they are very feared—the Scourge, that is. Far more than the Flail.'

'What's the Scourge? Or, for that matter, the Flail?' Pahner asked. 'Those are new terms to me.'

'We just picked up on them,'Julian admitted. 'The names of the three paramilitary groups associated with the Temple are the Sere, the Scourge, and the Flail. The Scourge is Sor Teb's group of slave-catchers, but the Sere is the external guard force, while the Flail is the internal police force. Together, that triumvirate's COs make up a military high council.'

'I would surmise that the high priests use these groups to counterbalance each other,' O'Casey interrupted. She looked out the window at the trio of volcanoes looming over the city and shrugged. 'There is resistance to Sor Teb, mostly from the Sere, the conventional forces whose function is to skirmish with the other satraps. The Sere's leader is Lorak Tral. Of all the High Council, Tral acts the most like a true believer, so he's well liked by the general population, and his appears to be the next most powerful faction. The local satrap, however, is beginning to fail. The jockeying for his position is coming to a boil, and it looks like it may be happening a bit too soon for Tral's plans or prospects. The fact that the last two high priests have been from the Sere is fanning the fire