School of Fire Read online

  School of Fire

  Starfist Book 2

  David Sherman

  &

  Dan Cragg

  Content

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Dedication

  For Our Mutual Friend, J.B. Post. If it wasn't for him, these books would never have been written

  Prologue

  The approaching sounds of snapping twigs and wet fronds squelching under rushing feet came to Commander Hing's ears. He didn't turn to look toward their source. If it was some fool of a Feldpolizei trooper coming through the forest, the man wouldn't live long enough to reach his position, except as a prisoner—his fighters would see to that. Most likely, Hing thought, it was one of his guerrilla band's scouts returning with the hoped-for report of a small Feldpolizei patrol approaching the ambush site.

  Hing kept his eyes idly roaming the road that cut between the shallow-sided hill his position was on and the equally low hill that rose from the road's other side, while his mind ran through all the possibilities. A commander who considered all the things that might go wrong could devise plans to turn each possible wrongness to his advantage.

  The sounds came closer and closer and finally stopped, punctuated by the thump of a knee hitting the ground a meter from where Hing lay concealed in a clump of grospalms.

  "Commander, it must be true what we have heard, the Feldpolizei has a new commissioner," a gasping voice said.

  At last Hing turned his attention from the road and looked at the speaker. Fighter Quetlal, the scout whose hasty approach had snapped so many twigs, squelched so many fronds. The commander raised an eyebrow questioningly.

  Quetlal was grinning broadly. The heaving of his chest quickly subsided; the members of the guerrilla band were well-accustomed to physical exertion in this heat and humidity. He made his report.

  "They are not wearing camouflage. Commander. They are not even wearing plain green or tan to help them hide among the tees." His grin broadened and his eyes glittered. "There are a hundred of them. And they are all wearing orange tunics and sky-blue pantaloons. You can tell the officers by the plumes on their helmets!"

  A hundred, normally too many for his company—but in that formation they might be easy to defeat. Commander Hing instantly thought of something that might be wrong, even with a new Feldpolizei commissioner as foolish as this one was said to be. "How do you know the ones you saw are not a diversion?"

  Fighter Quetlal grinned more widely than seemed possible and bobbed his head in a quick nod. "I thought of that myself, Commander. As soon as I saw them I thought they must be a diversion. But search as I might, I could find no one. Nor could the other scouts with me."

  Hing slowly shook his head one time. The oligarchs were getting more and more foolish in their conduct of this war. Where had they gotten the idea that sharp looking parade ground troops made the best fighters? Did they really think fancy uniforms would frighten fighting men?

  "How long?"

  "They are marching briskly in a column. Commander. Much faster than we would move through the forest. If I had seen us where I saw them, I would say at least a half an hour. As they are marching down the middle of the road, I must say bare minutes."

  "How watchful are they?"

  "Their eyes are straight ahead, as though they are passing in review. They are even carrying their blasters at right shoulder arms."

  "Scouts? Flankers?"

  Fighter Quetlal shook his head. "They have two point men twenty meters ahead of the column; that is all of their security." He barked a short laugh. "The point men must think they are ready, though they march straight ahead—they carry their blasters at port arms."

  "Have you passed an alert?"

  "As I came along our line. Commander. I told everybody."

  "Then continue along our line and tell the rest of the company." Hing turned back to the road; Quetlal was dismissed. The scout hastened to do his commander's bidding.

  Commander Hing's fingers absently caressed the stock of his blaster, fondled its firing lever. His was one of the few modern weapons possessed by the grandiosely named Che Loi Brigade of the Peoples Liberation Army, and the only one in this ambush. The rest of the sixty brigade members with him were armed with obsolete projectile rifles, which was a major reason for this ambush—to take modern weapons from the corpses of the oligarchy's Feldpolizei. Normally, with only sixty men he would let a hundred Feldpolizei pass unmolested. But with them marching in formation as they were, they were far too tempting a target to let go. Soon, in bare minutes, Hing's fighters would strike a mighty blow, and strike further fear into the hearts of the oligarchy—and become better armed.

  "That imbecile sends us to our death," Patrolman Perez muttered to the man at his side.

  "Only if they lie in ambush," Patrolman Troung replied equally quietly, "and are not frightened off by our blasters." He wanted to spit, but Captain Rickdorf's discipline was too severe for him to take the chance. He rolled his shoulders slightly to ease the way his burden weighed on them. "I'm more concerned with how my armor makes me sweat."

  "Quiet in the ranks," Shift Sergeant Ruiz called out softly from his position marching alongside the column of twos. Instead of a blaster on his shoulder, he carried a sergeant's saber at trail in his hand. "We don't want any bandits in the area to hear us and run away before we can catch them."

  Captain Rickdorf, marching erect at the head of the column, gave no sign that he'd heard the patrolmen talking. But he had heard, and he would remember. He promised himself that Perez and Troung—he knew their voices—would be disciplined for talking out of turn, as an example to the others, when they returned to the headquarters of the 407th GSB—Grafshaftsbezirk—precinct. Then he put aside thoughts of troopers so undisciplined that they talked in the ranks, and thought of the absolute surprise that would overcome the bandits when they finally saw his magnificent company, and the panic that would grip them when his men's blasters rained fire and destruction on them. He knew in his heart that Commissioner Schickeldorf was absolutely right: a well-drilled, well-armed, splendidly uniformed force will always strike fear into the hearts of an undisciplined bandit rabble—the very sight of such a force could spur the bandit rabble into flight. Even if the bandits attempted to fight, their projectile weapons would be useless against the body armor his men wore under their tunics. He nodded inwardly, confident that this brief expedition would rid the Bavaran Hills Province of its bandit problem forever.

  Captain Rickdorf saw that the road ahead cut between two steep-sided, thickly wooded hills. Just the kind of place where he knew the bandits liked to set their ambushes. He smiled inwardly as he thought of the shock the sight of his troops would induce in the bandits if they were indeed in ambush there. He hoped they were. This expedition could well earn him a decoration directly from the hand of Commissioner Schickeldorf—and a much-desired promotion and transfer out of this forsaken hills province.

  Fighter Quetlal had barely left Commander Hing's position when the brigade leader heard
the slightly ragged tramp-tramp-tramp of marching feet coming along the road below. He listened for a voice, but heard no one counting cadence. So they know how to march, he thought. We shall see soon how well they know how to die. His men knew how to lie in ambush, invisible from the road—none would fire his weapon until Hing blew his whistle.

  Two troopers, as splendidly popinjayed as Fighter Quetlal had promised, strutted into sight. Sunlight filtering through the tops of the towering hochbaum trees that grew between the clumps of grospalms dappled their tunics to the flowing color of old gold. Their marching legs swish-swishing along made their sky-blue trousers ripple like fast-flowing water in a clear, shallow stream. Hing shook his head; they were indeed marching erect, eyes straight ahead, blasters at right-shoulder. "Fools," he muttered, dismissing them, but his eyes lingered hungrily on their weapons. Soon the fighters of his brigade would put those modern weapons to far better use than these comic-opera Feldpolizei ever could.

  Twenty meters behind the point men, the rest of the column snaked along the road, marching two men abreast. This was so foolish; Hing suspected their commander would have had them marching three or four abreast had the road been wide enough.

  Their commander, oh yes. He was the most glorious popinjay of them all. His tunic was piped with gold cord, gold epaulettes jounced on his shoulders, and a fourragere—a braided gold cord—swirled around and dangled from his shoulder. A veritable kaleidoscope of medals adorned his left breast. Broad bands of silver ran down his trouser legs. It hardly seemed possible, but the saber scabbard that hung from his tasseled belt looked to be of precious metal as well. The saber he carried point up against his shoulder looked like a purely ceremonial blade, not a fighting blade at all—as though a sword was a weapon to use against blasters or even projectile weapons.

  As the officer passed below Hing's position, the guerrilla commander turned his attention to the column proper. Had he known that Captain Rickdorf thought his guerrillas would be surprised, he would have agreed with him. He was very surprised by the sight of this marching column of the Wanderjahrian Feldpolizei. They marched as if on a parade ground, their blasters for the moment uselessly propped on their right shoulders. When he blew his whistle, Hing thought, half would be dead before any of them could move their weapons into firing position.

  Hing counted the ranks of Feldpolizei as they marched past him. When his count reached twenty-two, he put his whistle to his lips. At twenty-three he sucked his chest full of air. At twenty-four, near the center of the double line of Feldpolizei, when all were well within the killing zone of the ambush, he blew.

  Thunder rippled all along the hillside as the fighters of the Che Loi Brigade opened fire at the marching column. Here an orange-tunicked man thudded screaming to the ground, clutching his thigh where arterial blood pulsed brightly from a bullet hole. There another spun about, his shattered arm spraying red. A brilliant rosette of bone and brain and blood blossomed on the forehead of a third man before he collapsed. Others staggered from the bullets that thudded into their bodies, but kept their feet as their body armor spread and absorbed the kinetic energy of the blows.

  "Troop! Face to the right!" Captain Rickdorf and his platoon officers shouted above the din of gunfire.

  "Front rank, kneel!" Rickdorf calmly snapped his order. The lieutenants echoed the command as they briskly assumed their positions at one end of their platoons. The shift sergeants stood their places with their men, ready to relay commands and keep the men in good order.

  "Lay your fire in a swath!" Rickdorf commanded, and the junior officers echoed him.

  "By ranks. Front rank, fire! Rear rank, fire!" Crackling plasma flashed from the nozzles of the front ranks' blasters and struck the hillside in a random pattern, followed quickly by an equally random pattern from the blasters of the rear rank. There were one or two screams from guerrillas charred by bolts, but the screams were quickly cut off by death or shock. A thin mist instantly spread raggedly on the hillside as the fire of the plasma bolts vaporized the moisture in the wet leaves and damp earth. Flames briefly shot up here and there, but quickly went out, as the recent rains had made the forest too wet to burn.

  "Line your fire," Rickdorf commanded. Neither he nor his men could see their attackers; they had to fire together to make sure they covered the hillside. "Front rank, ten meters up the hillside, fire!" The front rank fired again. This time its bolts struck in an irregular line along the hillside, some in the clumps of grospalms where the guerrillas hid, others uselessly in the lightly carpeted ground between them.

  "Rear rank, leapfrog five meters, fire!" The rear rank fired its volley, and its bolts spattered in a lightning-bolt jagged line along the hillside five meters above the first line.

  Here and there along the two lines of Feldpolizei, men staggered or bent as bullets spent their energy against their armor, a few screamed in agony from the pain of bullets that tore into arms or legs. Their screams were not matched from the hillside. Only a few troopers fell from chance hits in their heads.

  "Front rank, leapfrog, fire!"

  "Steady, lads," Ruiz said, loud but calm, as he marched casually behind the rear rank. "They are only an ill-armed rabble. We will easily beat them. Steady. Keep up your disciplined fire." Other shift sergeants said much the same to their men.

  Commander Hing saw how the troopers reacted to the body blows of his men's bullets, and understood almost immediately why they remained standing and continued to fire. Maybe he should have let them pass. But maybe he and his guerrillas could still win the fight. "They're wearing body armor," he shouted. "Aim for heads, arms, legs."

  Elsewhere along the ambush line he heard others cry out the same order, some so quickly he knew he wasn't the only one to see and know. The guerrillas shifted their aim from the center of their targets to the extremities, and troopers started falling.

  The Feldpolizei stood or knelt in patient ranks for the space of one more volley before individuals among them began to notice above the crackles of blasters and bangs of rifles screaming from within their own ranks and a lessening of their plasma cracks.

  "I told you!" Perez shrilled at Troung.

  "Keep firing," Troung shouted back.

  Terror rapidly mounted in his heart, and Perez glanced to the side—if anyone broke ranks, he would run with them. He looked just in time to see Shift Sergeant Ruiz's face erupt and splatter blood and brain from two bullet hits. Perez shrieked in horror and panic at the sight. He dropped his blaster and ran. By some miracle, he reached the shelter of the trees alive.

  Captain Rickdorf, head held high, swept his gaze across the hillside. The bandits must be higher on the hillside than he guessed; their fire wasn't slackening. "Rear rank, leapfrog ten—" He never finished the command. Simultaneously, one bullet tore through his throat, a second shattered his right temple, and a third shot between his open lips and ripped out the joint that held his skull to his neck bones.

  The bullet that hit Rickdorf in the throat continued its deadly flight unimpeded and spent itself in the shoulder of the trooper standing next to him. That man staggered and fell to his knees. The force of the blow knocked his blaster out of his hands and turned him half about, where he saw the captain's lifeless body bounce as it hit the road's surface. He screamed, more in shock at seeing his commander down than because of pain. Struggling to his feet, he tried to run away, but felt the mounting pain of his wound and was too unsteady for flight. He blundered into the men next to him.

  From the hillside, the guerrillas saw the troopers falling now and cheered. On the road, more and more of the troopers heard and saw the men to their sides no longer firing, either down or breaking ranks.

  Abruptly, with their captain dead, the surviving Feldpolizei who were able, ran.

  "Get them!" Commander Hing screamed. "Kill them before they get away."

  The guerrillas rained fire at the fleeing Feldpolizei, most of whom had thrown away their weapons to speed their flight. Many of them fell, dead from h
ead shots or crippled with shattered legs. Some dropped to their knees and faced the hillside with their arms upraised in surrender.

  "Cease fire, cease fire!" Hing shouted as the few who managed to dodge his fighters' bullets disappeared into the trees on the opposite hillside or around a bend in the road. He stood and bounded down the hill. On all sides his fighters came with him.

  Commander Hing looked up and down along the road, between the clumps of grospalms and the scattering of spikers on the opposite hill. There were more than seventy, maybe more than eighty, troopers down—dead, wounded, or surrendered. And there were more than ninety blasters scattered about. It was a most gratifying sight.

  "Lieutenant Pincote," he said as his second in command approached. "How many casualties?"

  Lieutenant Sokum Pincote showed teeth filed to points when she smiled at him. "Only six, Commander."

  "Six fighters dead is nothing to smile about. Lieutenant," he snapped at her. "I don't care how many Feldpolizei we kill, the life of one fighter is of greater value."

  Pincote's lips snapped shut. "Yes, Commander. I know that. I was merely expressing pleasure at our victory. We can now properly arm nearly half of the brigade."

  Hing looked back at the corpses and casualties uttering the road and nodded.

  Hing didn't bother to even shake his head. "We are not murderers. Leave them. We don't dare stay here long enough to tend them. The unwounded survivors can bandage them."

  Ten minutes later the fifty-four members of the Che Loi Brigade who survived the fight were carrying their burden of ninety-three blasters and the charred corpses of their six dead comrades under the trees, heading for a narrow, steep sided valley that was hidden from the current orbits of the planetary government's surveillance satellites. Soon they would join the other 240 members of the Che Loi Brigade back at their base camp, where the satellites could never see them, no matter what their orbits.

  Chapter One