The Wolf Worlds (6 page)

"We thank you in advance," the captain's voice rasped on, "for the boon which you will grant us on the morrow as our due for pursuing these unknown raiders. S'be't."

The soldiers moved quietly into their nightwatch positions.

"Why did your Sten not pick one of us, one of the Stra!bo, to begin the attack?" Di'n asked furiously.

Bet deliberately kept stroking Hugin, even though both tigers had been given their instructions and should have been on their way. Ida didn't volunteer, either.

"Because Sten respects your customs," she finally improvised.

She picked herself up and eyed the ranked formation of Stra!bo warriors, hidden deep in the battle grove.

"Knowing little of your laws, he felt that perhaps his methods—the methods of our team—might violate your customs."

Di!n grunted in satisfaction. She returned to the endless stropping of her spearblade on the leather strap curled around her fingers.

Bet looked down at the tiger. "Munin. Hugin. The cattle.

Now."

The tigers spun and bounced off into the gathering dusk, bounding deeper into the grassland that led out of the crater.

Ah, nae ye're bonnie wee boys, Alex thought, watching the five-man Jann patrol approach the clump of brush he was flattened in.

Ye hae not jus' the wee perimeter laddies, but rovin' patrols goin' to an' fro throughou' the night.

Aye, an' here they come. Point mon, all alert an' stri-kit…

patrol leader… aye, two weapons mons, an' th' wee tailgate.

C'mon, laddies. Alex's waitin'.

The patrol crept through the now almost total blackness past his clump of brush. Kilgour shouldered out of his weapons harness. Waiting.

Eyes awa' fr'm 'em, he needlessly reminded himself. Dinna be lookin'… ah, they be passin'. Pass on, pass on horseman, his mind misquoted.

The patrol, moving at a well-trained slowstep, silently passed the clump.

And Alex came up and fell into step behind them. Step an'

step an' y'ken we're in rhythm… an' now comin' up behind yon laddie…

Alex's enormous fist, three-gee-world muscles bunched behind it, smashed into the back of the rearguard's neck. The Jann dropped without a sound. Alex caught him, eased him to the ground.

There was no sound. The patrol eased forward, and Alex continued his creep.

Nae, these twa'll be linked by th' weapons belt. A nit tricket if y'can solve it. His fist went flat at belt level, flashed forward, into the base of the fourth man's spine.

He contorted, back broken, and fell. Alex pivoted around the falling corpse and sideslammed one meaty paw into the base of the third man's neck. Then swore to himself as the loosely held squad weapon crashed to the ground from the dying man's shoulder.

The Jann noncom had time to whirl and start his weapon up.

finger coming back on the trigger. Alex one-handed the weapon away, the barrel cracking, and his open palm went straight into the man's throat.

Gettin' a wee sloppy, m'boy. Cartilage crackle and a gurgle, his mind reprimanded as Alex flat-dove forward. Hit the ground in what looked like a curled bellyflop as the point man heard his noncom's deathrattle. came around, and Alex was rolling, his legs thrashing, and the man came crashing down, his weapon flying a meter away.

The pointman scrabbled for a knife, and Alex, now moving almost slowly, brought his knee up and then crashing down into the man's ribcage. He heard the dull sound of ribs crunching, and the Jann contorted and was dead.

Alex held. flat. Waiting. Nothing. Up on his hands and knees, and looked back down the path.

Y'mum'd be proud, lad. Five for five. Ah. well. Roll on demob.

And Alex went back down the path to wait for the attack to begin.

* * *

Nem!i had never seen so small a being run so fast. He and Doc had taken position about one kilometer outside the crater's mouth, deep in the grasslands. Between them and the craters, the Stra!bo cattle moved leisurely toward the corrals.

Doc was crashing through what was to him a jungle of grasslands, holding a heavy—again for him—bag of powder carefully to one side.

The ripped corner of the bag was trickling powder onto the ground. Doc looked up, saw that he was parallel with the crater's far wall, turned, and—still at a dead heat—dashed back toward the Stra!bo chief.

Came to a halt. The small bear and the tall chief looked soberly at each other.

"A being such as yourself deserves the highest respect," Nem!i said soberly. "To these eyes, you were an elder advisor to your youths. But now to find that you are yourself still a warrior, in spite of your advancing years. And that your body can still function, even though you are as fond as I of feasting— it is an amazing sight."

Doc ground his sharp little teeth and wished that the Empire hadn't done such a good job of conditioning him out of killing people who thought well of him.

"I thank you, Nem!i." he managed. "Your pleasure can only be exceeded by mine, when I see you personally lead the charge against the black ship."

Nem!i shook his head sadly. "I am afraid not. my friend. Men of my age are fit only for the mopping up and to congratulate the young warriors after their success. I will not be able to seek battle this night."

Doc swore six words Alex had taught him and touched the toggle switch.

And the powder caught, flashing high into the night. The tinder-dry grasslands roared into life, and, almost instantly, the two-kilometer arc of savannah outside the crater was a crescent-inferno, burning straight into the crater.

The cattle caught the scent of the flames and lowed nervously.

Their amble became a trot. Behind them was wildfire— a prairie firestorm.

Burning brands flew high into the night, and the fire began overleaping itself, almost burning itself out.

A blazing clump of bushes landed on one emasculate bellwether's back. He howled in dismay and broke into a gallop.

The panic spread, and the ground thundered as the herds of the Stra!bo stampeded directly toward the crater's mouth.

Hugin yowled nervously across the crater gap. Educated and mutated he may have been, but part of his tiger genes remembered what happened when large cats stood in the way of buffalo herds.

Munin coughed back, comfortingly. Then squatted and urinated. Hugin, too. followed orders.

The herd was just beginning to turn, unable to channel into the narrow crater pass, when the lead animals caught the scent of urine. What little ideas they had vanished in the acrid smoke and the scent of a hunting animal.

Hugin and Munin had not only channeled the stampede into the crater but almost doubled the stampede's drive forward.

Into the crater.

Directly toward the Jann cruiser.

The Jann com center was a confusion of gabble: "Negative observation on firestart"… "Alpha patrol, this is base. Alpha patrol, do you receive this station?"… "In the name of Talamein, stop them!"… "All stations… all stations to General Quarters"…

and then a long, blood-chilling shriek from one speaker.

The shriek came from the lone Jann soldier on observation point as the charging cattle broke through the savannah and reached his position. He held the trigger back to full automatic on his projectile weapon, and three animals rolled and were swallowed up as the rest of the herd boiled over the Jann.

The cattle thundered on. Even though they had heard the rush of the charge, the men in the weapons pits outside the floodlit glare had little time. To a man, they died under the axe-sharp hooves of the herd.

The Jann cruiser was barely twenty meters ahead of them.

There was no way or time for them to turn.

Sten. crouched high in one tree in the grove closest to the cruiser, didn't even have time to finish his flashed-curio equation:

To calculate the changes in velocity of a body (the
Turnmaa)
when a certain force is applied (stampeding cattle), the formula is—clottin' hell!

That solid black wave of cattle hit the equally solid Jann cruiser… and the stampede kept on coming.

And like a wave, it crested higher as animal dove over dead animal into the cruiser.

Fifty meters away, Sten could hear the alarms roar inside the cruiser.

The huge ship tottered on its landing jacks… rocked… and one small phalanx of animals slammed into it.

The Jann cruiser rolled, jack supports bending and snapping, and crashed to the ground.

Sten could feel the smash, even over the rolling thunder of the stampede.

Which was…just below him.

And, of course, the animals broke neatly, dividing around the trees, and continued their panic run off into the blackness.

Sten dropped out of the tree and hurtled toward the cruiser, clambered over the dead and dying animals, just as the
Turnmaa
settled on one side. The weapons in the top turrets were parallel to the ground.

Sten's willygun came off his shoulder, and he scrabbled up the cruiser's side, feeling a fingernail tear and break away. The turret hummed into life, just as Sten shoved his willygun's muzzle into the shrouding around the chain-gun's barrels.

He yanked the trigger all the way back and held it.

The willygun contained 1400 rounds. Each "bullet," while barely 1mm in diameter, was made of Antimatter Two, the same substance used to drive starships. Each "bullet" was in its individual Imperium shield, and laser-fired.

One round, on impact, would have about the same explosive force as a twentieth-century handgrenade.

It took twenty rounds to sledgehammer through the shrouding, into the turret's inside. And then: Picture liquid dynamite exploding. Picture the heart of a fusion reactor,
sans
lethal radiation.

The picture of hell.

Sten let 500 rounds whisper/and/crash into the turret, then dove straight down, as the explosion boiled up, spraying the steel of the turret out the gun mounting.

Sten tuck-rolled in midair, then thunked down on a fairly convenient steer. He whirled as footsteps thudded up and:

"Ah tol' you there be naught ae useful like ae coo," Alex said, helping him onto his feet.

And then the world turned into chaos as:

Dilti, Bet. and the Stra!bo warriors roared out of the darkness; Hugin and Munin. seemingly enjoying themselves immensely, loped out to join the Lake People's charge; Doc panted up, muttering unintelligibly, and…

Ida was standing beside them, her willygun spitting out measured bursts as Jann warriors tried to retake the turret, and:

"Ah'm Red Rory a' th' Coos," Alex bellowed, and leaped straight up the cruiser's side. Caught hold of some ripped hull plate and dove into the hole where that turret had been.

Sten, somehow, was right beside him, and then they were inside.

Flashing moments of red gore:

Di!n, a fixed smile on her face, as she slowly spitted a Jann officer against a bulkhead;

The whistle of spears wailing down a long corridor into a knot of panicked Jann troops;

Alex ripping a compartment door off its dogs and spinning it into squad weapon as its gunner tugged uselessly at a jammed tripod;

Ida calmly snapping shots as a platoon of Jann, assembled in one hold, maneuvered forward;

Bet, on the back of not particularly pleased Hugin. Munin soaring ahead of her, smashing down three Jann.

And then silence.

The red fog faded, and Sten looked around.

They were in the ship's control room. Bodies were scattered across the room, and blood seemed to trickle everywhere.

On one side, a handful of Stra!bo warriors, spears ready. The cats. The Mantis troopers. Sten.

And, his back to the semicircular main control panel, the Jann captain.

In full uniform.

"Talamein spoke against us," the captain said. "We have not found favor in his eyes."

Sten didn't answer, just walked toward him.

"You are the leader of this rabble?" the captain asked.

He took Sten's silence for assent.

"Then it is only right and fitting," the captain said, slowly drawing the saber at his side. "I shall fight a warrior worthy of my stature."

Sten considered. Suddenly Di!n was beside him, pressing a spear into his hand. She nodded—yes. You.

Sten hefted the spear, then dropped it, and, in one motion, lifted his willygun and fired twice.

The rounds caught the captain in the head, splattering his skull back across the twin view panels.

Sten turned away, holstering the gun. Nem!i was looking shocked, and then his expression cleared. He smiled.

"Ah," he said gently. "For Acau/lay. You do understand our culture."

"Is it gonna lift, Ida?" Bet asked, slightly worried.

"Of course it is." the Rom woman snorted. "So we've got half the ship sealed against leaks, we're taking off with no landing gear, there's a bad fuel leak, and I haven't had a bath in a week."

"No problem for a lass like you," Alex agreed.

Her thunder somewhat stolen, Ida snorted and hit keys.

Maneuver drive belched, hiccuped, snorted, and the
Turnmaa's
nose lifted.

"Now, as long as I can keep this computer from realizing what I'm doing…"

And she slammed both drive pots full forward.

Somehow both Yukawa drive units caught at once, and the
Turnmaa
clawed its way upward, searing the ground as the ship lifted for space.

Below it, only a handful of the Stra!bo were watching. They'd