Battlecry: Sten: Omnibus One (Sten Omnibus) (34 page)

The captain nodded reluctantly.

‘Captain, I can’t use you. But in the center of the city there is a man who can.’

The man’s expression grew hopeful.

‘He’s an old sergeant, and you’ll find him at Imperial Guard Recruiting. Now, here’s what he’ll want to see from you …’

Sten ignored the boy sitting across the mess table from him and glowered at Alex.

‘Another joke, Sergeant?’

‘Nossir. Ah dinnae ken whae tha’ lad comit frae.’

The boy was about nineteen years old. About Sten’s height and possibly fifty kilos in weight with an anchor tied around his ankles. Even in the daylight Sten could see the glitter of the boy’s surgi-correct lenses.

‘
You
want to enlist?’

‘Certainly,’ the boy said confidently. ‘By the way, my name’s Egan. And I’m speaking for twelve colleagues.’

‘Colleagues,’ Sten said amazedly.

‘Indeed. We would like to sign on. We’ve read your contract and accept the terms for the duration of service.’

Sten moaned to himself. It was turning out to be a very long day.

‘If you read my, uh, proposal, you’d have seen that—’

‘I saw that you want a hardy crop of killers. Daggers in their teeth or wherever you people carry them.’

‘Then why—’

Again an interruption. ‘Because you can’t fight a war without brains.’

‘I assumed,’ Sten said, ‘that I could possibly provide those.’

‘You? Just a soldier?’ It was Egan’s turn to sound amazed.

‘I manage.’

‘Manage? But you need battle analysis. You need projections. You need somebody to run logistics programming. You need somebody who can improvise any ECM system you might require. You need – Colonel, I’m sorry if I sound cocky. But you really need us.’

‘Not a chance. You and your friends – I assume they’re like you?’ Sten tried another, somewhat more polite tack. ‘First of all, how can I tell if you’re really the brain trust you say?’

‘Possibly because I know your payee account on Prime World is 000–14–765–666
CALL ACCOUNT PYTHON,
account depositor one Parral, world unnamed, and your current balance, as of this morning, was $72,654,080 credits.’

Very silent silence. Sten decided he was getting tired of gaping. It was time to start laughing. ‘Howinhell,’ he managed, ‘did you find that out? We are operating through cutout accounts.’

‘You see why you need us, Colonel?’

Sten didn’t answer immediately. Oh, Mahoney, his mind went. Why did you put me out here by myself? I don’t know what the clot kind of people you need to run a private war. So far all I’ve done is fake it. I wish I were back with Bet and the tigers and doing something simple like icing some dictator.

Stalling, he asked, ‘Egan. One question. Who are you and your friends?’

‘We … up until recently, we were advanced students at a lycée.’

‘Which one?’

Egan hesitated, then blurted, ‘Prime World.’

Both Sten and Alex looked impressed. Even soldiers knew that the Empire picked its brightest to attend the Imperial Home World Lycée.

‘So what are you doing here?’

Egan looked around the mess. No one was within earshot. ‘We were experimenting one night. I built a pickbox – that’s something you use to get inside a computer—’

‘W’ken whae i’ be,’ Alex said.

‘And I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time, but somehow we ended up inside the Imperial Intelligence computer.’

Sten, carefully keeping a straight face, held up a hand for silence. Egan shut up. Sten motioned to Alex. They rose and walked to the far end of the mess, both automatically checking for mikes.

‘D’ye ken whae yon wee but wickit lad done? He an’ his boyos got aeside Mahoney’s files. Ah nae wonder wha’ thae b’doint ae Hawkthorne. Espionage’s good frae ae penal unit f’r life.’ Alex chuckled.

‘What, good Alex, do you think of our Colonel Mahoney right now?’

‘Ah’m thinkit h’ beit puttin’ us in ae world ae drakh. Ae this momit, Ah nae b’thinkit kindly ae th’ boss.’

‘So we hire these kids?’

‘Frae m’point, Sten lad, there be nae ither choice.’

Computer printouts littered the room. Sten dragged a paw through his now-longish hair and wondered why the clot anybody ever wanted to be a general in the first place. He never realized how much paperwork there was before you got to say ‘Charge!’

Alex was sprawled on the couch, placidly going through a long, fan-folded report, and Egan hunched over the computer keyboard. He tapped a final series of keys and straightened.

‘Ready, Colonel. All units are on standby.’

‘Aye,’ Alex agreed, tossing the logistics printout to one side and reaching for a nearby bottle.

‘Sten’s Stupidities,’ Sten said, coming to mock-attention and throwing a salute to the winds. ‘Ready for duty, saaah! I have two hundred who’re—’

‘Two hundred and one,’ the voice rumbled from the corner of the room.

Alex was on his feet, pistol ready, as Sten hit attack stance.

The voice shambled forward. Sten decided the man must be both the ugliest and most scarred humanoid he’d ever seen.

He held both hands up, palms forward, waist level, in the universal I-bear-no-arms symbol. Sten and Alex relaxed slightly.

‘Who the drakh are you?’

The man looked down. Picture a giant, two-and-a-half meters tall,
looking hunch-shouldered and shamefaced.

‘Name’s Kurshayne,’ he said. ‘I want to go with you.’

Sten relaxed and grabbed the bottle. ‘We closed recruiting yesterday. Why didn’t you apply then?’

‘Couldn’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I was in the clink.’

‘Nae problem wi thae,’ Alex said, trying to be friendly. ‘All ae us bin thae. E’en m’mither.’

‘But I ain’t with any mob,’ Kurshayne said. ‘There weren’t nobody to stand my bail.’

‘If you’re solo, what are you doing on Hawkthorne?’ Egan asked.

‘Lookin’ for work.’ ‘Any experience?’ Sten asked.

‘I guess so,’ the giant answered. ‘I got this.’

He pawed through his waistpouch, dug out a very tattered and greasy fiche, and reluctantly handed it to Sten.

Sten took it and dropped the card into the pickup. It started as a standard Guard Discharge Certificate:

The fiche continued scrolling. Sten looked up at the giant with considerable awe. Four times this Kurshayne was up for the Empire’s highest medal? And …

‘Why’d you get busted fourteen times?’

‘I don’t get along with people.’

‘Why not?’ Egan asked.

‘Dunno, really. I guess I like ’em okay. But then – then they do things. Things that don’t look right. And I gotta do something about it.’

I have more than enough troubles, Sten thought, and took the man’s fiche out of the pickup. He handed it back to the man.

‘Kurshayne, if we weren’t fully manned …’

‘Beggin’t y’r pardon, Colonel.’ Alex.

Sten held. Alex paced slowly around the giant.

‘Ah knae ye,’ he said, very, very softly. ‘Y’r a mon whae knowit th’ right, but y’ dinnae ken whae thae be’t betters’n y’. Aye, Kurshayne, Ah knae y’ilk.’

Kurshayne glowered down at the rotund sergeant.

‘Nae, Ah proposit ae wee game,’ Alex said silkily. ‘Y’ ken aye punch?’

‘I know one punch, little man,’ the giant said. ‘Do you want to play it with me?’

‘Aye. Ah do thae,’ Alex said.

‘You go first.’

‘Nae, m’lad,’ Alex said, a grin flickering across his broad face. ‘Y’be’t thae applicant. Ah be’t thae mon. Gie i’ y’best shot.’

Without warning Kurshayne swung, an air-whistling roundhouse punch that caught Alex in his ribs. The punch tumbled him, rolling and spinning back against the couch, the couch crashing over, and then Alex slammed flat against the wall. He lay motionless for a moment.

Then he picked himself up and came back. ‘Aye, tha be ae braw slug, m’lad,’ he said. ‘B’nae i’ be’t mae turn.

‘An’ Ah be’t fair. Sportin’, likit. Ah gie y’warnin’. Nae likit yae, wha hie me ae sucker punch ae i’ y’be’t ae Campbell. Nae, Ah w’hit ye, mon.

‘But since Ah want ye in m’troop, Ah nae will damage y’ severe’t. So Ah tell y’ whae Ah’ll be hittint y’. Ah be strikit y’ ae th’ center chest. Light-like, f’r Ah nae want y’ hurt.’

Sten had never heard Alex’s dialect so thick. Correctly, he figured Kilgour was angry. Sten decided he was sorry for what was about to happen. Illogically, he was starting to like the dumb giant.

Kurshayne braced for the punch.

Instead, Alex delicately reached forward and picked Kurshayne up with … clottin’ hell, one hand, Sten realized … and lifted him clear of the ground. And then, seemingly casually, threw Kurshayne.

Two hundred kilos of Kurshayne, as if the laws of gravity had been put on hold, flew through the air. Hit the wall – two meters off the ground – and the wall went, crumbling into plas destruction in the corridor outside.

Kurshayne pinwheeled after the wall, out into the corridor. And,
moving very, very fast, Alex went after him. He bent over the semi-conscious relic and near whispered.

‘Nae, nae, y’wee mon. Y’hae ae job, Ah reck. But y’ll no playit thae game twice, Ah reck.’

Kurshayne fogged his way to his feet. ‘Nossir.’

‘Ah’m nae sir. Ah’m nae but aye sergeant. Yon Sten, h’be’t sir.’

Kurshayne struggled into rigid attention. ‘Sorry, Sergeant.’

‘Ah ken y’be’t sorry, lad,’ Alex crooned. ‘Nae, y’be’t off aboot i’, an’ Ah wan’ y’back here in ten hours. clean’t up an’ ready t’fight.’

‘Sir!’

And Kurshayne saluted and was gone. Sten and Egan were still gaping as Alex turned.

‘W’ noo hae 201 soldiers, Colonel Sten,’ he said. Then staggered to the console and snagged Sten’s bottle.

‘Clottin’ hell!’ Alex groaned. ‘Yon lad nie near kilt me! Th’ things Ah do’t frae th’ Emp—th’ cause!’

And I had a great future as a cybrolathe operator, Sten thought mournfully, looking at his assembled troops. They were standing in what could only be called Parade Motley on the landing ground, just in front of the
Bhalder.

Oh, Mahoney, I will get you, Sten groaned. There were Vosberh’s troops. Unshaven, unbathed, but well armed and, Sten conceded, fairly lethal.

Beside them, giving many hostile looks, were Ffillips’ commandos. Spit and polish.

There were other one- or two-at-a-time pickups and Egan’s crew of studious-looking Lycée kiddies.

Why me all the time? Sten wondered.

Beside Sten were flanked Vosberh, wearing a simple brown uniform, Ffillips in her personally designed dress uniform (suspiciously close to Guards full-dress), Alex, and Kurshayne.

Kurshayne had evidently decided he was cut out to be Sten’s personal bodyguard and had equipped himself` with what he thought was an ideal weapon.

As far as Sten could tell, since Kurshayne refused to let anybody examine it, it was a full-auto projectile weapon, with about a one-gauge barrel.

Sten knew that no human could fire it without being destroyed by the recoil. Whether Kurshayne could do it was still a moot point.

Oh. Mahoney, Sten thought again.

Then, business. One pace forward.

‘UNIT …’

‘COMP’NEE … COMP’NEE …’

The shouts rang across the wind of the landing field.

‘Unit commanders. Take charge of your troops. Move them into the ships.

‘We’re going to war!’

And then nothing but the howl of the wind and the drumbeat of bootheels.

And then nothing but Sten looking at Alex and both of them knowing why they’d chosen the profession they did.

And so, without banners, without bugles, they went off to war …

BOOK THREE

TAKING THE BLADE

The Jann Citadel hugged the plateau crest of the high, snow- and ice-covered mountain. Three sides of the mountain dropped vertically. Only the fourth featured a machine-carved road that S-snaked up toward the crest. A road with manned and electronic guardposts every few dozen meters.

The Citadel was more than just the theological center of the warrior faith/caste – it was also the training ground for all Jann cadets. And it was Sten’s first target.

The Citadel had been located on a not especially welcoming world, near the tip of a northern continent. It promised, by its very appearance, monastic dedication, asceticism, and lethality – quite an apt summary of the Jann beliefs, in fact.

Sten and his 201 mercenaries had been able to insert easily, using the talents and the ground-lighters of the Bhor.

Now they lay crouched at the foot of one vertical precipice, the sheerest that Sten could pick from the vidpics aerial recon had taken. The sheerest and the least likely to be guarded, especially now.

Far above him, atop the crest, the Citadel itself sprawled on the plateau. It closely resembled a black cephalopod, with its humped center section and, finger-sprawling out from the central bulk, the four tube barracks that held the Jann cadet cells.

Lights were on in the barracks, red against the snow. And, in Sten’s mind, he could see the top of the ‘hump’ – the massive building containing the temple itself, gymnasium, arena, and administrative offices, see its weather membranes ‘breathing’ in and out as they adjusted and readjusted the environment within. Even from the base of the cliff, Sten could see one of the membranes, glowing yellow-red from the lights inside and gently moving in and out like a living thing.

He pushed out of his mind the fear response that the entire Citadel was a living, brooding entity – an entity one of the mercenaries had immediately dubbed ‘the Octopus.’

Snow crunched behind Sten as Alex moved beside him. A second crunch as the ever-present Kurshayne snow-crawled up on his heels.

Sten tapped Alex on his shoulder and passed him the night glasses, then turned to check the rest of the mercenaries on the rock-strewn hillside behind him.

The 200 men and women wore white thermal coveralls and were snuggled deep into snowbanks. Sten’s practiced eye could pick out a movement here and there, but only because he knew where to look. Not only were the troops white-cammied, but so were their weapons and faces.

Which is why Sten started slightly when Alex lowered the night glasses and looked at him, peering through large, white eyes. White-camo contact lenses were very hard to get used to.

Sten smiled about the obvious joke about holding your fire until you can see … Alex raised a questioning eyebrow over a pure white eyeball. Sten covered, smile gone. He didn’t think even Alex would appreciate the joke under the circumstances.

Which were: the Citadel. A deadly octopus in profile. On top of a sheer mountain. With black spots of soft shale where even snow couldn’t stick. And where it did, the rock was old and rotten. Blanketed with ice and snow. Sten wasn’t worried about the crumbling rock. That he could handle. But the ice sheets were waiting, ten-meter-long razorblades.

Sten shuddered.

Alex took one more look at the kilometer-high cliff. Leaned close to his side.

‘Ah dinna lovit tha heights.’ the heavy-worlder confessed in a whisper. ‘Aye lads bounce whenit tha fall. Th’ Kilgours squash.’

Sten chuckled and Alex whispered into his throat mike for Vosberh and Ffillips to come forward.

Expertly the two swam-crawled through the snow until they were on either side of him. Sten gave his last instructions. He was pleased when the two professionals didn’t even raise an eyebrow as they saw the climb that faced them. Ffillips, however, put in a word for bonus money, and Sten shushed her.

‘I want to hit them where it hurts,’ he reminded. ‘The chapel. A legitimate target. Torch it. Melt it.

‘Ffillips? Your group has responsibility for the chapel. Vosberh – the barracks. They should be empty now. Blow them to hell for a diversion.

‘If you see an officer – a teacher – in your way, kill him.’

He paused for emphasis.

‘But if you can help it, don’t kill any cadets.’

Vosberh hissed something about baby roaches growing up to be ...

‘They’re kids,’ Sten reminded. ‘And when the war’s over. I’d rather face some ticked-off diplomats than angry parents or brothers and sisters with short-range murder in their thoughts.’

Vosberh and Ffillips – very much the professionals – remembered wars they had won and coups they had then lost, and agreed with Sten’s reasoning.

The cadets – unless some got in their way – were not valid military targets.

There was a thump at Sten’s boot. He looked back and saw Kurshayne. The man had Sten’s pack of climbing gear. Sten sighed. Accepted.

‘All right, you can come with me,’ he said.

Still, as he crawled forward to begin his climb, he felt a little bit better.