CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Cord examined the blade in the firelight.

The weapon was a Mardukan two-handed sword. At nearly three meters in length, it would have been ridiculously oversized for a human, but its proportions were lean, lethal, and graceful, and its silver-and-black patterning and elaborate engravings reflected red in the flickering light.

"Beautiful craftsmanship," Cord whispered. "Definitely Voitan work."

Much of the pattern was covered in a patina of rust which had been inexpertly scrubbed in places, damaging the very artistry the scrubber had meant to reveal.

"Damned Kranolta," the shaman added.

"Yeah, but it's useless for us," Lieutenant Jasco said, shaking his head. His arm was cradled in a sling with a broken ulna as a result of the ambush. Fortunately, his quick-heal nanites were on the job and he'd be out of it in a day or two, none the worse for wear.

Others hadn't been as lucky.

Captain Pahner appeared out of the darkness. He tossed a short sword or long knife point-first into the ground beside the shaman and nodded to the lieutenant.

"True," he agreed. "But this will work just fine, and most of them were carrying at least one of them." He paused, looking speculatively at Cord, and then cleared his throat. "And a bunch of them were carrying something else, too. Horns that looked . . . sort of familiar."

The shaman clapped his true-hands in agreement with a shiver of disgust.

"The Kranolta take the horns of kills as souvenirs. They prefer the horns of champions, but in fact, any will do. The souvenirs of lesser enemies are made into musical instruments," he added, examining the knife before he tossed it down dismissively. "Well crafted, but it's only a dagger."

"Maybe for you Mardukans," Pahner replied, taking a seat by the fire. "But for us, that's a short sword. Combine it with large shields and a javelin, and I think we'll show you a thing or two."

"You're planning on using the Roman model?" Jasco asked. The need to use local equipment was a foregone conclusion. The ambush they'd just survived had depleted nearly ten percent of their plasma rifle rounds. At that rate, they would be "fired dry" before they made it to the next city-state, and that didn't even consider what had happened to Corporal Bosum. They had to start training on local equipment as soon as it could be obtained, but Q'Nkok, unfortunately, hadn't had sufficient supplies of human-sized weaponry to outfit the company.

Jasco had been arguing in favor of a technique using longer swords and smaller shields: the "Scottish model." He felt that the longer swords would be more effective against the reach of the Mardukans. Of course, against a weapon like the one the shaman was examining, any possible human reach with a sword wouldn't matter.

"I think the Roman model will be easier to learn," Lieutenant Gulyas put in. The Second Platoon leader joined the group gathered around the fire and took a seat as well. He slapped a bug on his neck and shook his head. "Not that it will help worth a damn, if today is any example."

The company had taken heavy casualties, particularly in First and Second Platoons. And while the majority of the deaths were from the spears and swords of the attacking Mardukans, there were numerous minor injuries from the grenades of the prince's bombardment. Reactions to Roger's actions were mixed. It came down to those who'd been saved by his intervention being in favor of it, and those who'd been injured by it being against. The only undecided were those like Sergeant Julian, who'd been saved while being injured. He said he would make up his mind after the ribs healed.

"We survived it," Pahner said stoically. The company had been devastated by the ambush, and had lost Lieutenant Sawato, a platoon sergeant, and two squad leaders. But that didn't mean the mission was a failure. Or impossible. "We need to move smarter. From now on, we're going to put a squad out front on a three-pronged point. That should spring any ambushes before we get to them."

"It's not doctrine, Sir," Jasco pointed out, fingering his sling. "It won't spring a long-range ambush, and you're effectively offering a squad as a sacrifice instead of one Marine."

The captain shook his head angrily.

"We keep forgetting that the Mardukans are range-limited. Or these Mardukans are, at least—that may change when we finally hit some of them with gunpowder. But as long as we keep flankers out at thrown-weapon range to the front, the Kranolta can't ambush the main body. They don't have the range. So we change the doctrine."

"And pack up the goddamned plasma guns," Gulyas said with a grimace. Bosum's death had been spectacular, and most of the plasma gunners had already unloaded their weapons as a precaution. No one knew what had gone wrong, and no one wanted to be the next person to find out.

"Yeah," Jasco snapped. "No shit."

He was out half a squad and a team leader from the malfunction. Between Koberda's death and the loss of most of the squad's Alpha Team to the plasma rifle malfunction, Gunnery Sergeant Lai had been forced to roll what was left of Second and Third Squads together under the Third Squad leader.

"Well, like the King said in Q'Nkok," Pahner pointed out, "if you have one problem, it's sometimes insoluble. But if you have several, they sometimes solve each other. We took enough casualties that there are spare weapons for all the plasma gunners to switch over to something else. I'll have Poertena and Julian start going over the plasmas in the morning, but in the meantime, we'll limit ourselves to grenades and bead guns."

"As long as the ammo holds out, Sir," Jasco said.

"That too," the company commander admitted with a grim smile. "That too. Which brings this conversation full circle."

Roger knew that doing kata while angry was pointless. No matter how many times he tried to find his balance, he could never quite manage it, yet he couldn't stop, either. He spun in the darkness behind his tent, hair windmilling out in a golden halo, away from the eyes of most of the company while he tried to work out his frustration, anger, and fear.

He was shocked by the casualties the company had taken. Despite everything, it had never truly occurred to him that the Marines might be wiped out by this march. Oh, intellectually he'd acknowledged the possibility, but not emotionally. Not at the heart of him. Surely modern troops, armed with Imperial weapons, would be able to slash their way through an enemy armed only with spears and swords or the crudest of firearms.

But that presumed the enemy was unwilling to take casualties. And it also presumed that the Marines could see the enemy in time to kill him before he reached such close quarters that all of their advantages in range and firepower were negated. The failure of the automated sensors to detect the attackers before they struck boded ill for the rest of the journey.

Although the tactical sensors were, theoretically, designed to detect a broad range of possible "traces," it was now clear that the software depended heavily on infrared and power source input. If it had a possible contact, but the contact was "anomalous," it filtered by infrared tracing and power emissions, which made perfectly good sense against high-tech opponents who would be emitting in those bands.

But the Mardukans emitted in neither of them, so the sensors were throwing out most detections as ghosts. In some cases during the battle, the helmet HUDs had flatly refused to "caret" the enemy at all, which had thrown off the Marines, who were trained to depend primarily on their helmet sensors precisely because those sensors were so much better than the ones evolution had provided. Except that now they weren't.

Roger had dealt with that problem by ignoring the targeting carets—first by using the simple holographic sights on his rifle, and then by firing into a melee where he knew the Marines weren't on the theory that that was where the enemy had to be. Of course, the burst radius of the grenades had caused a few problems, but still . . .

He spun on the ball of one foot, carrying the heavy sword through a vicious butterfly maneuver. It wasn't fair. He'd personally broken the back of the ambush. So the method was a little drastic. It had worked, and whatever Pahner might think, his actions had stemmed from neither panic nor stupidity nor arrogant carelessness.

Now if someone besides the ever-worshiping Dogzard would just realize that, he might even—

He froze at the sound of a cleared throat and turned gracefully to face the interruption. His face settled into a practiced, invulnerable mask of hauteur as he placed the point of the sword on the toe of his boot. It was an incredibly arrogant pose, and he knew it, but he didn't really care just at the moment. Screw 'em if they didn't like it.

"Yes?" he asked Despreaux. He hadn't heard the soft-footed squad leader approach, and he wondered what she wanted.

The NCO regarded him carefully for a moment, taking in both the attitude and the picture. The prince had changed into a pair of shorts to work out, and the heat and activity had raised a heavy sweat. The greater moon, Hanish, was breaking through the clouds, and the reflected fire and moonlight dappled the sweat on his body like patina on a bronze statue. The image sent a stab of fire through the NCO's abdomen which she firmly suppressed.

"I just wanted to say thank you, Your Highness. We probably would have cut our way through the ambush, but we were in the tight, no question. Sometimes you have to do things that seem crazy when it drops that far in the pot. Blowing the shit out of the Company isn't the dumbest thing I can think of, and it worked. So, from me, thanks."

She didn't add that the Mardukan who'd been blown all over her by one of the grenades had had her dead to rights when it hit. Another second, and the big bastard would've taken her head off before she could reload.

Since it was exactly what he'd wanted to hear, Roger couldn't understand why the statement caused him to flare with rage. But it did. He knew it shouldn't have, but it did. He tried hard—really tried—to swallow his contrarian reaction, but his inner anger leaked through his control.

"Thank you for your input, Sergeant," he replied tightly. "In the future, however, I'll try to think of a more . . . elegant solution."

Despreaux didn't have a clue what it was about her comment that had pissed the prince off so badly, but she was smart enough to back off.

"Well, thanks anyway, Your Highness," she said quietly. "Good night."

"Good night, Sergeant," Roger said more naturally. His intense flare of anger was already fading, and he wanted to apologize for his earlier tone, but he couldn't find the words. Which only made it worse, of course.

The rebuffed NCO nodded calmly to him in the moonlight and headed back into camp, leaving him to swing his sword and rage . . . now at both the world and his own stupidity.