March To The Stars

'I'm very busy, Mr. Mansul,' the chief of staff said. 'I don't have time for games. It's Prince Roger.'

'This isn't a game, Ms. O'Casey,' he said seriously. 'Now look.'

O'Casey looked at Roger. He was talking with the Gastan and one of the other Shin warlords, accompanied by Pahner and Kosutic, the still barely mobile Cord, a group of Vashin and Diaspran bodyguards, and Dogzard.

'I see Roger and company,' she snapped. 'What about it?'

'Describe him,' Mansul said quietly. 'As if you were writing the article.'

'A tall man ...' she began, and then, suddenly, stopped.

A tall man, darkly tanned by alien suns, a sword on his back and a pistol at his side, his unbound blond hair streaming in the wind. He was surrounded by a group of powerful, intelligent, capable followers who were not just willing to follow him anywhere, but already had—and would again, at a moment's notice, even knowing the impossible tasks they faced. His face was young, but with almost ancient green eyes. The eyes of a man who had already strode through a dozen hells... .

'Oh ... my ... God,' she muttered.

'Now you understand.' The journalist's whisper was an odd mix of delight and something very like awe. 'This isn't just the story of a lifetime. This is the story of a century— possibly a millennium. You couldn't pry me off with a grav-jack.'

'That's ...' She shook her head, trying to clear the vision. 'It's just Roger.'

'No. It's not,' the journalist said. 'And, trust me, you aren't the Ms. Eleanora O'Casey I had a passing view of at the palace. You've survived, Ms. O'Casey. Sure, you were protected, but are you ready to tell me you're the same person you were before this tremendous trek?'

'No, I'm not.' She sighed at last, and took one more look before she turned away. 'But it's still silly. I don't care what he's become, he's still Roger.'

* * *

'This is silly,' Roger muttered. 'I take it back. There is such a thing as too much overkill.'

They were observing the Krath siege lines from the top of the western wall, trying to determine if there was anything Roger's force could add to the defense. Pahner had dragged all the senior commanders, along with the main 'battle staff,' up to the battlements with them for a good hard look. And it didn't look good.

'Yes,' the Gastan said with a gesture of amusement. 'It is a bit overwhelming, isn't it?'

It looked very much as if Kirsti had moved its entire army in toto up to the plain. From the mountains, standing beside Pedi's turom cart, that army had looked like a large ant mound; from the walls, it looked like ... an immense ant mound.

The tent city at the rear measured nearly four kilometers on a side, broken into three distinct camps with regular roads and well laid out garbage and personal waste management. The latter seemed to be primarily trucked out, rather than simply dumped into the river, which struck the humans as the best field hygiene they'd come across yet. On the other hand, it was apparent that the majority of the forces weren't spending much time under canvas.

A regular siege had been laid on in front of the Shin citadel. Dozens of separate zig-zagging communications trenches led forward from the area of the Krath encampment to a much larger trench parallel to the walls. The parallel trench was covered by stout wooden palisades, and bombards fired occasionally from emplacements along the parallel. But the bombards in use were on the small side; they were still far enough from the fortress that they were barely in range; and there weren't very many of them. Coupled with their low rate of fire, their impact on the defenses was marginal ... so far.

Despite the indications that the Krath were here for the long haul, they seemed quite prepared to settle things more quickly if the opportunity offered. And they obviously considered that they had the manpower to explore ... more direct and straightforward alternatives to battering a way through stonework with artillery. A frontal assault—or, more precisely, another frontal assault—had obviously been tried earlier in the day, and the dead hadn't been cleared away from the base of the walls yet.

The forces arrayed against the Shin were enormous. Between the rear of the siege works and the tent city, there were blocks and blocks and blocks of infantry. So many that all most of them could do was sit on the ground, awaiting their next orders. There literally wasn't room to use more than a fraction of them against the fortress at any given time.

'There are at least two hundred thousand troops in view,' Julian said, consulting his toot. 'It looks like that could be another sixty thousand in Quericuf and the wing forts, and an unknown number in the tents.'

'Worse than the Boman,' Rastar muttered. 'These bastards are organized.'

'The majority of them return to the tents at night,' the Gastan said. 'They're as much for warmth as for cover, and they have to clean their pretty armor, don't they?'

'I suspect that they wait until they return to do their business, as well,' Honal commented. 'Otherwise, they'd be up to their knees in shit by now.'

'If they just charged all at once, they'd overwhelm you,' Pahner said, ignoring the side conversations.

'Possibly,' the Gastan replied with a gesture of resignation. 'And possibly not. Moving them all forward at once is ... a bit of a challenge. It takes a lot of tricky coordination. And they'd have to stack themselves on top of each other to get to the top of the wall. We're the Krath's prime source for any number of raw materials, including wood, so they're having a bit of trouble finding sufficient materials for enough ladders. Then, even if they took the fortress, they'd have to manage the groups that were in it. They've taken sections of the wall before, but those Krath who seize them just mill around on top, wondering what do next until we counterattack and kill them or drive them off. They're perfectly willing to keep trying assaults on the off-chance that one may work—they've certainly got the manpower for it!—but they've also fallen back on more complicated means.'

He waved at the palisaded parallel ... and at the trenches zig-zagging forward from it. It was obvious that the smaller trenches had perhaps another fifty to seventy-five meters to go to reach the point at which the next parallel would be cut, that much closer to the walls.

'They've been moving the siege lines forward steadily,' the Gastan said. 'They won't have to get a lot closer to bring their bombards into effective range. When they do, they can pound us hard enough to cause a breach. Then they'll pour their troops through, and it will all be over.'

'Not much I can add,' Fain said. He'd been doing a few calculations on the back of the wall, and now he dropped his piece of charcoal and dusted his true-hands, body language distinctly disgruntled as he contemplated the figures he'd scrawled across the stone. 'Each of my fellows would have to kill fourteen hundred of them. I can't guarantee anything over a thousand, unless we get more ammunition.'

Pahner had been rubbing his chin in thought. Now he pulled out a piece of bisti root and cut off a sliver.

'I'll tell you the truth,' he told Pedi's father. 'We need to take the spaceport, and from what you've said, it's not all that long a trek from here. If we took it, we could come back with all the firepower we need to clear out the Krath.'

'It's a point,' Roger agreed. 'A couple of cluster bombs would be a treat on these guys.'

'That would be ... difficult,' the Gastan said coldly. 'I have a hard enough time convincing my people that it's worth fighting the Krath at all, especially given the reason that they sit on our doorstep. If you were to go, for whatever reason, I doubt I could continue to ensure your safety. Or that of my other human guests.'

Pahner sighed, nodded, and slipped the slice of root into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully for a few seconds, then shrugged.

'I suspected it would be something like that. Okay, let's try a few 'old-fashioned' remedies first. If those don't work, we'll think about alternatives.'

'I guess that's about our only option,' Roger agreed. 'On the other hand, sooner or later, we're going to have to move on the port, anyway. I truly hope taking it won't be as tough as it could turn out to be when we do get around to it, and I think we need to think about that simultaneously. Armand, you and I need to concentrate on ways to deal with the Krath. But while we get fully up to speed on the local situation and the balance of forces, Julian, you need to start massaging the data Jin gave us. We need a way into the port.'

'Yes, Your Highness,' the NCO said doubtfully. 'If there are any of us left to take it.'