Starfist: Hangfire (32 page)

Sword Cherub's squad was assigned to ranchland. He chose to lead the team with the most difficult terrain: scrub fit only for grazing by widely scattered kine. The scrubland gave the great advantage of longer sight lines than were usually possible in orchard farms or through the rows of windbreak trees found on grain farms, but there was the disadvantage of poor concealment. The herdsmen roaming about on the lookout for dangers to their charges could easily spot the team if its members weren't vigilant.

Nobody had any way of knowing whether those herdsmen were with the rebels, so it was imperative that the soldiers of Heaven's Vision not be seen by them. That was why Sword Cherub, the most experienced and skilled member of his squad, chose to lead the team himself.

They had been out for a week and a half, and Sword Cherub was beginning to feel unclean. Not dirty.

As a soldier he was often dirty and was used to it. Unclean. The need for unobtrusiveness and constant vigilance had kept him and the team away from Sunday's church service. In two more days they would miss a second church service. Cherub was not particularly devout; a soldier could not afford to be so devout that he could not bear to miss Sunday service. But he was devout enough that missing two services in a row gave him serious pause.

Because of the chance of being seen, the team did most of its moving at night. At dawn that day they'd settled into a shallow, boulder-bordered hollow near the top of a rock-strewn low hill. When the sun came up, Cherub had found the location to be even better than he'd originally thought—it gave clear view of a village and the herdsmen between it and the village. His map told him they were twelve kilometers from the village called Twelfth Station of Jerusalem. Two twelves, most auspicious, he thought, and felt slightly less unclean. Perhaps today the rebels would launch their next attack. The operation, or at least his team's part of it, might well be over before the coming Sunday, and he and his men would be able to go to service.

The boulders that bordered the hollow were sufficiently jumbled that men lying or sitting still could peer between them without being seen unless someone came very close. They were large enough to cast shade sufficient to keep the soldiers from baking in the harsh sun. The gaps between the boulders allowed slight breezes to waft through the hollow, enough to keep the flying gnats that were the bane of men in the scrubland from congregating too densely on them. Sword Cherub assigned his men to watch and sleep by twos in three-hour shifts. He himself would watch and sleep at irregular intervals to ensure that each of the men had the advantage of his experience for at least part of his watch.

The morning passed without incident. On the land stretched out below, herdsmen wandered about checking on the small bands into which the kine gathered for grazing. The forage was too thin for the herd to graze together, but the kine were too strongly herd animals for many of them to wander about alone in search of fodder. Those few who did wander alone were more likely to be brought down by predators, removing them from the gene pool, decreasing over generations the willingness for solitary pursuits among the kine. Once, the soldiers were entertained by watching three herdsmen chase away a wolf, a predatory lizardlike animal somewhat smaller than its Earthly namesake.

"That wolf is fortunate," one of the watching soldiers said. "Had it been me down there, we would dine on fresh meat." He patted his flechette rifle.

The other watching soldier snorted. "Had it been you down there, the wolf would have been in a pack and they would dine on fresh meat." He watched the wolf as it slunk away, and shivered at the thought of the pack the wolves normally hunted in. His entire team could be in danger if there were a wolf pack nearby. He increased his vigilance and vowed to tell the other soldiers about the wolf when they were awakened for their turn at watch.

High above, flying scavengers glided away on thermals, their attention already diverted from the wolf, which was not going to bring down a meal for them.

The sun was near its zenith and the herdsmen were finding shady spots near their kine when a sonic boom shattered the peace.

Sword Cherub bolted awake and dove for a gap in the rocks in the direction he thought the sound came from. Without conscious thought he grabbed his flechette rifle as he moved. The other sleeping soldiers moved almost as sharply into defensive positions as he did.

"Do you see anything?" he asked.

"No, Sword," replied one of the soldiers who was on watch.

The other watching soldier grunted that neither did he.

The boom continued for several seconds, rattling into a higher register. Then it abruptly broke.

"There!" a soldier shouted, and pointed.

Cherub saw it at the same instant, a fast-flying aircraft in what looked like a landing approach, except it was flying entirely too fast for a landing. Was it possible that the rebels had aircraft, and that this one had been damaged in an aerial fight and gone supersonic to make its escape? It was too far away for Cherub to identify. He groped for his telescope and put it to his eye. The blocky thing with stubby wings that he saw speeding like a flung brick wasn't an aircraft, it was a shuttle! He'd seen a shuttle once when he was briefly assigned to duty in Haven. It had descended from its several degenerating orbits to spiral gently down onto the landing pad inside Interstellar City. It did not come down on a straight, fast glidepath like this one. If his memory was right, it had also looked different than this one as well.

Sword Cherub braced his arms and the barrel of the telescope itself against rocks to keep the field of view as steady as possible as he swiveled the telescope to track the shuttle. Still the shuttle stuttered and jittered in his view as the air it slammed through buffeted it. He saw flame shoot from its front and the shuttle stagger more violently, and then, suddenly, it wasn't where he was looking. He swung the telescope back and found it again, moving much slower now. The stubby wings appeared to grow, and the shuttle seemed to stagger again as the wings bit into the air. Within seconds the shuttle was clearly in controlled flight.

Cherub removed the telescope from his eye to get a view of the shuttle's path. He estimated that unless it altered its course, it would touch down three kilometers from Twelfth Station of Jerusalem. He picked up his radio.

"Heaven's Vision Seventeen to Host. Heaven's Vision Seventeen to Host. Over," he said into it. "A shuttle is about to land at..." He gave the map coordinates when Host acknowledged his call. "That is right," he said when the incredulous radioman at Host questioned him. "An orbit-to-surface shuttle.Yes, I'm looking at it right now. Yes, I've seen a shuttle before, I know what I'm looking at." He waited while the Host radioman called for the watch officer, then repeated his information to the officer and added, "It just touched down." He propped his telescope on a boulder and looked at the shuttle through it. "It's disgorging something that looks like armored personnel carriers, looks like four. They're headed into Twelfth Station of Jerusalem. Yes, four of them, headed toward the village."

He flinched at the crack of another sonic boom and turned his telescope toward it.

"Sir, that boom was another shuttle. Sir, I have no idea where they came from. We didn't see anything before the sonic booms told us where to look. Yessir, I'm sorry, sir. This one looks to be in the same landing pattern as the previous one. If so, it will be maybe thirty seconds before it lands. Yessir, wait one." He shifted his telescope back toward the landed shuttle and scanned the scrub for the APCs. "Sir, the first shuttle is sitting there. The APCs it dismounted are about to enter Twelfth Shrine of Jerusalem.

Yessir, that's right, it's just sitting there." He turned to one of his men. "Use your GPS and get a fix on that shuttle's position."

The soldier looked through the scope of the GPS spotter he carried. "I can't get a precise reading," he reported. "The GPS doesn't have a size match for that shuttle."

"Give it to me as near as you can." The soldier did, and Cherub relayed it to the officer. "Understood, sir. We will standby to guide the Avenging Angels."

The watch officer at Host signed off.

"Avenging Angels are being scrambled to strike the shuttle while it's still on the ground," he told his men.

They grinned. Watching an air strike from a safe distance was exciting.

The second shuttle didn't follow the path of the first all the way down, it altered its course and landed midway between the Heaven's Vision soldiers and the village. Three of the vehicles it debarked followed the first wave to the village. The fourth turned about and sped for the low hill.

"They can't know we're here," Cherub assured his men. "It's scouting, and it's mere chance that it began scouting in our direction."

But the armored and armed vehicle wasn't scouting and it wasn't chance that sent it toward the low hill any more than it was chance that had its shuttle alter its path and land closer to the hill. Sword Cherub's radio transmissions had been picked up and his position pinpointed, and now he and his men had held their positions too long to have any chance of getting away.

They didn't live long enough to see the carnage in the village, or to see the four Avenging Angels disintegrate before they could get off their first missiles. They barely had time to hear the sonic boom of the third shuttle. They completely missed the way the twelve nimble land vehicles chased down and slaughtered the herdsmen and all the kine they could not carry off. Sword Cherub's last thought was a sincere prayer that he'd be forgiven his uncleanliness.

Bishop Ralphy Bruce Preachintent again stood before the Convocation of Ecumenical Leaders. His eyes were downcast on his hands, clasped in front of the pale rose necktie that bisected his starched white shirt. His main vestment was a suit of silver-gray sharkskin picked with a delicate gold pinstripe.

When the herald finished reading the report, Bishop Ralphy Bruce raised his head and spoke in the holy cadences.

"BRETHREN! You have all HEARD the herald's REPORT." Today he didn't strut back and forth along the chancel rail in the sacred choreography, nor did he stab fingers at his listeners. His mood was entirely too somber for such joyousness. But nothing could remove the sacred cadences from his speech.

"It is quite CLEAR that the HERETICS who PLAGUE our hinterlands and MARTYR our blessed PEOPLE are not APOSTATES from among us! Rather, they are GODLESS ones come from AFAR to launch a CRUSADE against the PEOPLE of THE LORD!"

Yes, the assembled leaders had heard the herald's report. At least, those of them who hadn't dozed through it, or hadn't been otherwise occupied in conversation with their neighbors or engrossed in their own thoughts. They had all read the report before assembling, and discussed it with their highest staffs and advisers. Many of them had other reports as well, made by their own agents within the Army of the Lord. The report of the attack on Twelfth Station of Jerusalem was far the most appalling they'd heard, even without considering the off-world implications of the shuttles.

"MY FRIENDS! Archbishop General Lambsblood has CONFESSED to me that the ARMY of the LORD does not know what weapon this FOE has that can so SMITE our aircraft from the SKY! YEA, the archbishop general TREMBLED when he made this CONFESSION! I do not know whether his FEAR was from his lack of KNOWLEDGE or if it was righteous FEAR of the LORD'S WRATH for his FAILURE!

"Archbishop General Lambsblood was so CONTRITE over his FAILURE that he offered his RESIGNATION." He dropped his voice. "Of course, I refused it.

"BRETHREN!" He flung his head and hands heavenward. "What are we to DO with HERETICS

descending UPON us from AFAR!"

The same aged cleric in white cassock and squared turban who spoke first the last time the convocation met rose slowly from his position in the front pew.

"BROTHER!" Bishop Ralphy Bruce threw a hand toward him. "Do you WISH to give TESTIMONY?"

"Bishop Ralphy Bruce," the old man said in his quavery voice, "I have been a member of this convocation longer than anybody else. I have stood where you stand more often than anybody else. I have seen more heretical movements come and be put down than anyone else here."

"Do you have a point to make, Ayatollah Fatamid?" Bishop Ralphy Bruce asked impatiently.

The old man cocked a rheumy eye at him. "If you will be patient for a moment, young man."

Bishop Ralphy Bruce took a half step back. For all the grandiosity of his speech and gestures, he fully understood the delicate balance he was responsible for maintaining among the powers of Kingdom.

"Forgive me, Ayatollah Fatamid, I beg you."

Ayatollah Fatamid stared at him a moment longer, then spoke again. "I have seen more heretical movements come and be put down—I think I already said that. It does not matter who the heretics are or whence they come. The righteous people of the Lord will always prevail, even if we must contract with off-world mercenaries to take jihad to the home world of these heretics. Allah akbar."

Someone gasped at the old man's use of an invocation specific to one religion, but was quickly hushed by those nearest him. Ayatollah Fatamid might have breached protocol with his last words, but he was widely respected among his peers. Besides, most of them knew he was somewhat senile and shouldn't be held responsible for everything he said. But his mention of hiring mercenaries to take jihad to the home world of the unbelievers who were raiding the Kingdom of Yahweh and His Saints and Their Apostles, that bore discussion.

The only outcome of the meeting was the appointment of a delegation to Interstellar City for the purpose of enlisting the aid of the off-world unbelievers in learning whence came the heretics. Maybe the Confederation would send its military there to teach them a lesson. After all, Kingdom was a full member of the Confederation of Human Worlds, and it was a violation of the Confederation's constitution for one member world to attack another without approval of the central government on Earth. Even then, the attacked world had to be served notice of the coming invasion. Violation of that section of the Constitution merited swift punitive action.