Starfist: Kingdom's Swords Page 13

  “We too have had them, Brother Increase,” Elnathan Jones said. “It does not surprise me that the Hand of God has descended upon our elite and opened our eyes to the machinations of Satan and his minions.”

  “Brothers,” Jacob Zebulon intoned, “are the People ready? Are they ready, as the Jews of old, to flee Egypt into the Wilderness?”

  “Aye, when the Convocation is concluded, we shall be ready, brother,” the others responded. Before the Cambria was destroyed and vengeance could descend upon them, the entire congregations of the City of God would be long gone into the wildernesses of Kingdom, to refuges in the vast wastelands of the planet, there to weather the storm that was sure to descend upon them as soon as the news was out that the ship had been destroyed by their men.

  “We are going to show them all a thing or two,” Eliashub Williams rumbled.

  “That we are, Brother Williams! That we are!” Harmony said. “Only the Confederation, in league with the Convocation, could be responsible for these depredations, and you all know, brothers, that the purpose of these incursions is to set Confederation troops among us to destroy us! Well,” he shook his fist in direction of Haven, where the sanctuary of Mount Temple was located, “the scales shall be dropped from their eyes and they shall see the truth.”

  “They’ll see it, all right, from every hemisphere on the planet Earth.” Williams chuckled.

  “Brothers, before we depart here for Mount Temple, let us pray for the souls of our brave brethren who will show the light to the people of Earth. They should already be aboard the Cambria and en route to glory.”

  The seven men bowed their heads and began to recite the Twenty-third Psalm of David.

  Bishop Ralphy Bruce Preachintent drummed his fingers impatiently on the tabletop.

  “Brother Ralphy Bruce, would you please stop that?” Chairman Shammar asked. Bishop Preachintent had been last year’s chairman of the Convocation of Ecumenical Leaders. This year it was the turn of the leader of Kingdom’s largest Muslim sect, Ayatollah Jebel Shammar. Ralphy Bruce was included in the select company seated around the conference table because he was the spiritual leader of Kingdom’s largest evangelical sect. The other three holy men—Swami Nirmal Bastar, Cardinal Leemus O’Lanners, and the Venerable Muong Bo—represented the largest Hindu, Catholic, and Buddhist sects respectively. Together the five men were the spiritual leaders of three-fifths of Kingdom’s population, and since Kingdom was a theocracy, they were also the five most powerful political figures on the planet.

  “Need I remind anyone that tomorrow begins the Convocation of Ecumenical Leaders? We must decide now on the strategy we wish to pursue in this time of crisis,” Shammar told the others, but he looked straight at Bishop Preachintent as he spoke.

  “It is not the dissidents who are responsible for the destruction that has been visited upon us,” the Venerable Muong Bo said. “They have neither the forces nor the organization to defeat the Army of God.”

  “You are right, Venerable,” Ayatollah Shammar responded. “It has to be the Confederation itself, brothers.”

  “Yes, and their goal is the subjugation of our world and the destruction of our sacred beliefs and practices!” Swami Bastar almost shouted. Of all the sects on Kingdom, Bastar’s was the most controversial, mainly because it adamantly refused to abandon the ancient practices of its ancestors, which included the immolation of wives on their husbands’ funeral pyres.

  “Has anyone considered,” Ralphy Bruce began, his voice deceptively calm, “that possibly, just possibly, what is happening might be due TO THE WRATH OF A VENGEFUL GOD AS AN EXAMPLE TO US SINNERS?” He shouted the last words at the top of his voice.

  The Venerable Muong Bo winced. “No,” he responded.

  “You are beginning to sound like a minister of the City of God, dear brother Ralphy Bruce.” Swami Bastar smiled.

  “Hmpf. Well. I just meant that is a possibility, my friends!” Preachintent went back to drumming his fingers on the tabletop.

  “Brothers,” began Cardinal Leemus O’Lanners, leader of the ultraconservative breakaway Catholic sect known as the Fathers of Padua, “in my Father’s house there are many mansions.” The others raised their eyebrows slightly. Cardinal O’Lanners was not known for the clarity of his sermons, which were mostly in Latin anyway, the official language of the Fathers. But he was a magnificent specimen of a churchman, in his bright red robes and with his huge patrician nose.

  “Well, yes . . . yes. Ahem. Things only happen through the will of Allah, His name be praised.” Ayatollah Shammar nodded respectfully at his Buddhist and Hindu colleagues. “But what we have here, I think, is purely a political situation. For many years the Confederation has been dissatisfied with the way we run things on our beloved Kingdom. They are unable, under the rules of their Constitution, to interfere directly in our affairs,” he shrugged, “but were we for some reason to ask for their military assistance,” he paused, “they would have a foothold on our world. The camel’s nose, so to speak, would then be firmly under our tent.”

  “Well, that is just what we have done!” Preachintent protested. The request for military assistance from the Confederation had been made during his own chairmanship.

  “Individually, there are many things we cannot see, but collectively,” Shammar shrugged, “our vision is clear.”

  “Then why didn’t any of you speak up during the last Convocation?” Bishop Ralphy Bruce muttered as he went back to drumming his fingers.

  “We will give them the foothold they want,” Shammar continued. “We will then direct their forces against the sects that have been giving us trouble.” He smiled. “We are not without allies in the Confederation. Once the designs of their government are known, we can lobby for a complete withdrawal of their forces. The Confederation government in Fargo may sometimes operate in violation of its own Constitution, but its Congress is jealous of its prerogatives, and the Confederation is a democracy. Policy set by any democratic power is fickle, subject to the whims of the peoples’ representatives. If we stick together in this, we can achieve the goal we all have always wanted—the complete destruction of the heretical sects.”

  “Brothers, I hear you and I will go along with you,” Bishop Ralphy Bruce said. “Now, brothers, I know you think I’m just an uneducated country preacher”—the others protested this loudly—“but you have seen the destruction, talked to the survivors! This terror is not the work of Confederation military forces! There is something about what is happening out there that is . . . is . . .”

  “Otherworldly?” Shammar interjected. “We all believe in the spiritual, Brother Ralphy Bruce, but I assure you, these attacks are strictly of this world. But if they are a sign from Allah, His name be praised, who is He using as His agent, then? Can you answer me that? What force is the Almighty employing that works like armored fighting vehicles?”

  The four men fell silent. Bishop Ralphy Bruce Preachintent stared at his fingers. “I do not know,” he answered softly, “and really, neither do any of us.”

  “The second best thing Creadence did was to get the hell out of here,” Jayben Spears, newly arrived ambassador to the Kingdom of Yahweh and His Saints and Their Apostles, told Prentiss Carlisle, his chief-of-station. “And how damned smart was I to take this job, eh?” Spears laughed.

  “Well, sir, I didn’t get to know him that well. I was only here a month between the time Harly Thorogood died and Ambassador Creadence was transferred.”

  “Ah . . .” Spears waved his hand and poured them both more Reindeer ale. “I got used to this stuff when I was ambassador to Wanderjahr,” he remarked as he poured. “I worked closely with Ted Sturgeon there, as you know. Thirty-fourth FIST is based on Thorsfinni’s World, and they drink this animal piss by the gallon. It’s pretty good too, once you get by the taste.”

  “I’ve got to tell you, sir,” Carlisle couldn’t suppress a laugh, “you really stunned old Lambsblood, the way you greeted Brigadier Sturgeon.” They both laughed. Carlis
le couldn’t help remembering the astonished look on the general’s face as Ambassador Spears slapped Brigadier Sturgeon on the back and they traded comradely insults like old friends. “Well,” Carlisle continued with an effort, “we all thought you were going to retire after Wanderjahr, sir.”

  “Me too. But let me tell you something, Prentiss—my rank is Diplomatic Service One. Do you know how much a DS1 earns?” Spears laughed. “But I’m retiring after this assignment, that’s for goddamned sure!” They drank. “So tell me, Prentiss, what’s the take on this—this goddamned rathole? What are the sky pilots down here up to? I got the full intelligence brief before I came out here, but you’ve been on the ground. What’s your view?”

  Prentiss shrugged and set his mug down. “Thorogood knew something, sir, but he didn’t get a chance to pass it on. But from my short time here, my perspective is that, as usual, the powerful sects are trying to wipe out their lesser competitors. They’re the ones who’ve been destroying these villages. Note that none of the places ravaged belong to any of the dominant sects. So they put the finger on some unspecified rogue member world of the Confederation as the culprit, and call us in to wipe out their main competitors, plus anyone else they don’t feel like slaughtering themselves.”

  “But the so-called Army of God has taken some heavy casualties, Prentiss. That’s beyond dispute.”

  “Yes, sir, but each of these sects has its own military force. The place abounds with small armies. I think the five major sects got together, pooled their resources, and then set the planetary army up to be the fall guys.”

  “They ambushed their own troops?”

  “Yessir. That’s the way I see it anyway. Sir, you have to remember, this place is a ‘theocracy,’ but the only thing these people believe in is power for themselves. They’ll do anything to get it and keep it. That’s why they’re so afraid of dissidents with new ideas. The theocrats, through this Collegium thing—nothing more than a damned inquisition, you ask me—control both the minds and the bodies of their adherents. Then comes along this City of God movement—”

  “Neo-Puritans,” Spears interrupted.

  “Yessir. They really believe the crap they preach, say that for them. But they’re crazy. And they’re a threat to the ruling sects.”

  Spears was silent as he sipped his beer. “Well,” he said at last, and grinned, “You know what the first best thing was that old Doc Friendly did? He asked for the Marines. Let me tell you, Prentiss, that was the best thing that ever happened to the Kingdom of Yahweh and His Saints and Their Apostles, whether they know it or not. Ever read anything by C. S. Lewis, Prentiss?”

  “Can’t say I ever heard of him, sir.”

  “Well, he wrote somewhere—his Screwtape Letters, I think—that when the Puritans lost their influence, people ceased to believe in the devil anymore, and that was the best thing that ever happened to the devil. Do you think the devil is operating here on Kingdom, Prentiss?”

  “I sure do, sir, and his name is Jebel Shammar.”

  CHAPTER

  * * *

  THIRTEEN

  When contact finally came, it wasn’t the battalion’s right front corner that made it, it was the center of the formation’s rear. All of M Company had followed a stream so sluggish it was nearly stagnant. Some of the Marines waded through it, probing its depths and its banks for anything or anyone hiding in its murkiness. They didn’t probe deeply enough through the tangled buttress roots of the trees that lived dangerously atop a deeply undercut section of bank, and so missed what hid there. When the sensors on the sides of the Leader commanding the twenty Fighters who hid within the roots told him the Earthmen were all past, he gave the signal and his Fighters swam into the stream. Some of them stood in the chest-deep water; most slithered up the banks.

  Second platoon, which had lost much of its strength so horrendously when Dragon 3 exploded, was rear guard. PFC Zhaque, the rearmost Marine in the column, wasn’t experienced enough for walking backward to be second nature for him, the way it was for experienced rear points, so he was facing front when the Skinks came out of hiding and he didn’t see them. Lance Corporal Schindigh, the Marine in front of him, on the other hand, was experienced enough to automatically maintain contact with the column and the rear point. Schindingh was also facing forward when the Skinks emerged from the water, but he turned around an instant before the Leader shrilled the command for his Fighters to open fire.

  “Behind us!” The sound of Schindigh’s voice was drowned out in the crack-sizzle of his blaster as he opened fire on the Skinks. He dove for the ground as he fired, and his gaping jaw slammed shut when he hit—the Skink he’d snap-fired at was hit a glancing blow and flared up in a flash of fire. Schindigh’s shock at the sight had popped his mouth open. When it was jarred closed, he bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood. The shock and pain distracted him just long enough for a Skink to point its weapon’s nozzle and send a streamer of greenish fluid toward him. He saw it coming in time and rolled out of the way, but more Skinks were spraying in his direction and he was hit by two streams. He screamed.

  Zhaque, meanwhile, stood frozen for long seconds before he dropped. Five Skinks fired toward him, and three of their streams hit. He died agonizingly within seconds.

  The remaining Marines of M Company’s second platoon scrambled to face the threat from their rear. Captain Boonstra, the company commander, raced back to eyeball the situation. As he ran he ordered his other two platoons to maneuver to his flanks. He got there just in time to see a Skink flare up from a blaster hit.

  He’d heard that someone flashed like that the first time his company encountered this enemy, but hadn’t believed it.

  Only two Marines from second platoon were still fighting. Boonstra called for his other two platoons to get into position fast-fast-fast!

  Sergeant Janackova and his squad were the first to get on line with the company commander. They couldn’t see where the enemy was.

  “Range?” Janackova asked into his helmet comm.

  “Thirty,” Boonstra snapped back.

  “Volley, thirty,” Janackova ordered his squad. “NOW!” The Marines aimed and fired as one. A line of mud and wet foliage steamed up when the seven bolts hit. “FIRE!” Janackova ordered again. Another seven bolts shot forward, raising more steam and a little black smoke where they hit.

  Another squad from M Company’s first platoon reached the line and joined in the volley fire. They were greeted by a brilliant flash as another Skink flared into vapor. In another moment all of M Company was on line, volley firing into the swamp to the battalion’s rear. There were more flashes from vaporizing Skinks, and the screams of wounded and dying Marines punctuated the firing. Flames began to flicker in the scorched foliage.

  When he didn’t see any more flashes for fifteen seconds, Boonstra ordered the volleys adjusted to forty meters. Then he ordered, “Scatter fire!” and the Marines ceased their disciplined fire in favor of bolts shot in random patterns.

  Soon no more streams of greenish fluid sprayed at them from the front, no more lights flashed. A cloud of steam grew in the canopy as flames from dried foliage licked higher.

  “Cease fire!” Boonstra ordered. He studied his company’s front while he reported to Commander van Winkle.

  The fire team and squad leaders gathered their casualty reports and gave them to their platoon commanders, who relayed the reports to the company command element. Captain Boonstra’s heart sank when he got them. Second platoon was dead, only one member of it left uninjured. Half of the survivors of the destroyed Dragon were dead, and the rest were wounded by the acid. Most of the wounded needed immediate evacuation. His other platoons were in better shape, but his company was down to half strength.

  “On your feet,” he ordered, doing his best to keep the pain of the losses out of his voice. “We’re going to sweep that area and look for bodies. If you find anybody alive, try to keep them that way, we need prisoners to question.”

  The Marines
of M Company rose to their feet and cautiously moved back the way they’d come. They found scorched spots where Skinks had flared up, but there were no bodies to be found, much less live ones to be taken prisoner.

  “Yessir, that’s affirmative,” Captain Boonstra reported to Commander van Winkle. “I saw it myself, they flashed into vapor when they were hit.”

  “You actually saw bodies hit and flare up?”

  Boonstra hesitated for a moment. “Nossir, not exactly. I saw the flashes, but I never actually saw one of the enemy.”

  “So you don’t know positively that the—” van Winkle hesitated. Who were they really up against? Was it the Skinks Company L’s third platoon had encountered on Society 437? What were they doing here? Why did they attack without apparent cause? “—the people you fought were vaporized. The flashes could have been magnesium flares and they dragged off all their dead and wounded.” Van Winkle didn’t doubt for an instant that the Marines of M Company inflicted casualties on the foe they fought.

  “That’s right, sir.” But Boonstra was convinced that the flashes he’d seen were made by the enemy, whoever they were, vaporizing when they were hit.

  “All right. The battalion is continuing into the swamp.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Dragons are on their way to take your casualties out. Catch up with us as soon as they do. And this time make damn sure your rear point is watching the rear. I don’t want any more surprises like that one.”

  In a single afternoon one of his companies was reduced to little more than half strength. In all his years as a Marine, van Winkle had rarely seen a company hit that hard in so short a time.