March To The Stars

'Ah, we were intending to offer them terms,' Roger pointed out. 'I think it would be ... difficult to kill them all. And we can probably get more for them if they're alive.'

'You humans are so silly that way.' Pedi's gesture bordered on contempt. 'I say chop off all their heads and float the bodies down the river. They'll get the message that way.'

'Well, there are alternatives,' Roger said. 'We could simply blind and castrate them all and then have them walk back. All except one in twenty or so that we can leave with one eye to lead the rest. Or we could fire them out of cannon; you could load them all the way to the hips in the bombards. Or we could lay planks over them, then put tables and chairs on top of the planks, sit down, and eat our dinner while they were all crushed to death. Or, best of all, we could go retake the spaceport, come back with assault shuttles, and drop jellied fuel weapons on them. They want fire, we'll give them fire.'

'Roger,' Despreaux said.

'Those would do,' Pedi agreed. 'But I can tell you're joking.'

'The point is that humans quit doing that sort of thing because we're too damned good at it,' Roger said. 'We can do it efficiently or baroquely, using a million different methods, culled from our entire history. I doubt that Mardukans can exceed our inventiveness, although they might equal it. But taking that route never gets you anywhere; you get trapped in an eternal round of massacres and counter massacres. It's only after you break the cycle and create strong groups—nations—that enforce the laws and demand some sort of international standard of acceptable behavior, that things start to improve.'

'Fine, but we're here. And it's now,' the Shin protested. 'And when you humans leave, the Krath will still be there. And their soldiers will still be there, and the Scourge will still be there.'

'All part of the negotiations,' Roger replied. 'They've lost their field army. If they don't get it back, they're dead meat for the other satraps. We'll strip them of their treasure, make them pay tribute, and have them sign binding treaties against slave-raiding. We won't take the tribute to 'punish' them, but to weaken them so that they're not death threats to you. The conditions might hold, and they might not. But humans who are friendly to the Shin will also be in control of the spaceport, Pedi. If the Krath get out of hand, we can send an assault shuttle. And we will.'

'What about the Scourge?' Slee asked.

'What about them?' It was the first time Roger had heard one of the released serfs ask a question, so it caught him a bit off guard.

'I don't care about the Sere, My Lord,' the serf replied. 'But it's the Scourge that has burned our homes and taken our children. Do they go free?'

'I doubt we'll be able to specifically target them,' Roger said, after a moment. 'But they'll be out of a job.'

'Which means they'll go back to being bandits,' Pedi said. 'So be it. The Shin are better bandits than the Scourge any day.'

'Not exactly something that I'd aspire to,' Roger sighed. 'But if that's what floats your boat.'

'Your Light!' the sole Shin guard called. 'There's a message from the north tower. A group has been spotted on the edge of the Fire Lands!'

'How large?' Pedi asked. She moved to the bastion's parapet and craned her neck, trying to get a glimpse beyond the northern defenses of the town.

'I don't know,' the guard replied. 'The message was simply 'a group.' ' He pointed to the northern bastion, where a red flag with a complex design had been raised.

'Time to switch positions, people,' Roger said. He turned and headed for the ladder. 'I don't like this timing.'

* * *

'Shit.' Roger dialed back the magnification on his helmet. 'Unless I'm much mistaken, that's a Scourge raiding party. How the hell did they get around our backside that way?'

'We knew that the Scourge had found a way through the Fire Lands,' Pedi told him almost absently, straining her own eyes as she stared out over the wall. 'We should have remembered that.I should have remembered, since it was how I came to be in their hands before the Lemmar captured me. But all of their captives were hooded on the way through the lava fields, so I was unable to tell Father where their route lies.' She snorted bitterly. 'It would seem they have chosen to use it again.'

'Roger, we're ... way outnumbered.' Despreaux put in. She'd been doing her own count, and she didn't like her total. 'We've got about fifteen guards in the town, and there are over a hundred Krath.'

'It's not good,' Pedi agreed. 'But it's not quite as bad as it seems, either. Many of the clan leaders brought their families, and many of them are trained as I am. And we have the walls. I will go organize them, get them up here. Can you send a message to Nopet Nujam?'

'I can,' Roger said. 'But it's an hour's ride from there. Even if they sent the Vashin now, they'd be here too late. Get your battle-ladies. I'm going to find my armor.'

'What are you going to do, Roger?' Despreaux asked nervously.

'Try to politely dissuade them,' the prince replied.

* * *

'Sor Teb, as I live and breathe.'

'Good afternoon, Prince Roger Ramius MacClintock,' the head of the Scourge replied, walking up until he was within arm's length.

The Scourge raiding party had stopped and deployed just out of dart range from the walls. There were perhaps a hundred and fifty of them—a mixture of Krath and Shadem raiders. They were lightly armed and armored, but given what they were up against, that probably wouldn't matter.

Except for Roger.

The prince had donned his battle armor and packed along a heavy bead cannon. They hadn't gotten much in the way of ammunition from the spaceport yet, because they'd used most of their carriage for the explosives required to demolish the mountain. But they'd gotten a few rounds for the bead cannons, and his magazine was loaded first with shot rounds, then with solid. If he opened fire, he was going to cover the field in bits and pieces of Krath and Shadem.

'Well, if you know who I am, you ought to know that I don't bluff or negotiate very well,' Roger told Teb calmly, and felt a trickle of amusement as the Scourge commander stiffened ever so slightly. Obviously, the Mardukan had hoped that the shock of knowing he'd been identified would throw Roger at least a little off stride.

'You're here on a fool's errand, Sor Teb,' the prince continued. 'The Sere have been stopped butt cold, and our reinforcements will be here in no time at all. Your army's trapped between our walls and a rising river, and it's surrendering en masse. Any captives you take will be returned, or you won't get your field army back. And if you don't turn around right now, as part of the negotiations we'll add your head to our demands.'

'Very brave, Your Highness,' the Scourge said with a grunting laugh. 'But there are three things you're unaware of. First, given the situation that you and your people created in Kirsti, my head isn't worth spit in the Fire, anyway. Second, we're not here to take captives; we're here to kill everyone we can and loot the town to the ground, then return to the Shadem. I'm not going back to the Krath.'

'Well, in that case my last point is that if you don't turn around, I'm going to turn you into paste,' Roger said, hefting the bead gun. 'I can kill at least half of you before you can make it to the walls. And then I can track down the rest and tear your arms out of their sockets. Oh, and you can't count—that was only two points.

'But I can, Your Highness.' The Krath brought his hand around. 'My third point is that I have a surprise for you.'

Roger had never actually seen an example of the device in the Scourge commander's left true-hand—not in the flesh, as it were. But he recognized it instantly. It was no larger than an old, prespace flashlight, and the principal upon which it worked was almost as ancient as its appearance. Very few things could actually penetrate ChromSten armor, but there were ways around that. Essentially, Sor Teb's 'surprise' was a last-ditch, contact- range weapon specifically designed to knock out battle armor or lightly armored combat vehicles. Known as a 'one-shot,' it consisted of a superconductor capacitor, a powerful miniaturized tractor beam, and a hundred-gram charge of plasticized cataclysmite in a ChromSten-lined channel.