CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Most of the company was already gone when Roger walked through the gates. The hill ascended through the ruined city to a citadel on the upper slope, and it was obviously there that Captain Pahner had decided to make his stand.

Not everyone had been sent on to the citadel, however. A security detachment consisting of most of Second Platoon covered the gates, and Pahner sat waiting on his mound of rubble.

Roger walked up and saluted the captain.

"I'm back," he said, and Pahner shook his head slowly and spat out his gum at the prince's feet.

"First of all, Your Highness, as you've pointed out to me time and again, you don't salute me, I salute you."

"Captain—"

"I won't ask what you were thinking," the Marine continued. "I know what you were thinking. And I will admit here and now that it has a certain romantic attraction. It will certainly play well to the newsfeeds when we get home."

"Captain—"

"But it doesn't play well to me," Pahner snarled. "I've spent Marines like water to keep you alive, and having you throw that away on a stupid little gesture really pissed me off, Your Highness."

"Captain Pahner—" Roger tried again, beginning to get angry.

"You wanna play games, Your Highness?" the officer demanded, finally standing up. The two were of a height, both of them nearly two meters, but Pahner was by far the more imposing, a modern Hercules in bulk and build.

"You wanna play games?" he repeated in a deadly quiet voice. "Fine. I'm a master of playing games. I resign. You're the fucking company commander." He tapped the prince on the forehead with one finger. "You figure out how to make it across this goddamned planet without running completely out of ammunition and troops."

"Captain—" Roger was beginning to sound desperate.

"Yes, Sir, I'll just toddle along behind. What the hell, there's not a damn thing I can do anyway!" Pahner's face was turning a truly alarming shade of red. "I am really, really pissed at Bilali, Your Highness. You know why?"

"Huh?" Roger was confused by the sudden non sequitur. "No, why? But—"

"Because he can't forget he's a goddamned Marine!" Pahner barked. "I was a Marine before his mother was born, but when I came to the Regiment the first time, do you know what they told me?"

"No. But, Captain—"

"They told me to forget about being a Marine. Because Marines have all sorts of great traditions. Marines always bring back their dead. Marines never disobey an order. Marines always recover the flag. But in The Empress' Own, there's only one tradition. And do you know what the tradition of your regiment is, Colonel?"

"No, I guess not, but, Captain—"

"The tradition is that there is only one task. Only one mission. And we've never failed at it. Do you know what it is?"

"To protect the Imperial Family," Roger said, trying to get a word in edgewise. "But, Captain—"

"Do you think I liked leaving Gelert behind?!" the captain shouted.

"No, but—"

"Or Bilali, or Hooker, or, for God's sake, Dobrescu? Do you think I liked leaving our only medic behind?"

"No, Captain," Roger said, no longer even trying to rebut.

"Do you know why I was willing to lose those valuable people, troopers I've trained with my own hands, some of them for years? People I love? People that until recently you didn't even realize existed?"

"No," Roger said, finally really listening. "Why?"

"Because we have only one job: get you back to Imperial City alive. Until Crown Prince John's kids reach their legal majority and Parliament confirms their place in the succession, you—God help us all—are third in line for the Throne of Man! And whether you believe it or not, your family is the only damned glue holding the entire Empire of Man together, which is why it's our job—the Regiment's job—to protect that glue at any cost. Anything that stands in the way of that has to be ignored. Anything!" the captain snarled. "That's our mission. That's our only mission. I thought about it, and determined that I couldn't persuade them to retreat and abandon Gelert. But the company probably would have been lost if we'd settled into a meeting engagement on that ground. So I ran," he said softly.

"I abandoned them to certain death, cut my losses, and beat feet. For one reason only. And do you know what that was?"

"To keep me alive," Roger said quietly.

"So how do you think I felt when I turned around and you weren't there? After sacrificing all those people? And finding out it was for nothing?"

"I'm sorry, Sir," Roger said. "I didn't think."

"No," Pahner snapped. "You didn't. That's just fine, even expected, in a brand new, wet-behind-the-ears lieutenant. The ones who survive by luck and the skin of their teeth learn to think, eventually. But I can't take the chance on your not making it. Is that clear?"

"Yes," Roger replied, looking at the ground.

"If we lose you, we might as well all cut our throats. You realize that?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Roger, you'd better learn to think," the Marine said in a softer tone. "You'd better learn to think very quickly. I nearly took the entire company back out to get you. And we would all have died on that slope, because we couldn't have extracted you and then withdrawn successfully. We would have died right here. All of us. Bilali and Hooker and Despreaux and Eleanora and Kostas and all the rest of us. You understand?"

"Yes." Roger's voice was almost inaudible and he was looking at the ground again.

"And whose fault would that have been? Yours, or Bilali's?"

"Mine." Roger sighed, and Pahner looked at him unblinkingly for several moments, then nodded.

"Okay. As long as we have that straight," he said, and waited again until Roger nodded back.

"Colonel," he went on then, without a smile, "I think it's time we gave you another `hat.' " He reached out again and tapped the prince on the forehead once more, more gently this time. "I think you need to take over as Third Platoon leader, Colonel. I know it will be a step down in rank, but I really need a platoon leader over there. Are you up for it, Colonel?"

Roger took his gaze off the ground at last, looked up at him, and nodded with slightly misty eyes.

"I'll try."

"Very well, Lieutenant MacClintock. Your platoon sergeant is Gunnery Sergeant Jin. He's an experienced NCO, and I think you could learn a lot from listening to his advice. I remind you that platoon leader is one of the most dangerous jobs in the Corps. Keep your head down and your powder dry."

"Yes, Sir," Roger said, and produced another salute.

"You'd better get up there, Lieutenant," the captain said soberly. "Your platoon is hard at work digging in. I think you should familiarize yourself with the situation as soon as possible."

"Yes, Sir!" Roger saluted yet again.

"Dismissed," Pahner said, and shook his head as the prince trotted up the ruined road towards the citadel. At least he finally had Roger unambiguously slotted into the chain of command, although he hated to think how the Regiment's CO was going to feel about the expedient to which he'd been driven. Now if he could only keep the young idiot alive! Platoon leader really was the most dangerous post in the Corps; which didn't mean that it wasn't less dangerous than watching Prince Roger ricochet around like an unaimed rifle bead on his own.

He watched the prince for a few more moments, then decided that he should hurry himself. He couldn't wait to see Jin's face.

"Gunnery Sergeant Jin?"

"Yes, Your Highness?" The gunnery sergeant turned from specifying positions and fields of fire with Corporal Casset and glanced at the prince. "Can I help you?"

The city of Voitan had been vast, but the citadel was the simplest of constructions. It was built into the slope of the mountain, backed up to a cliff which had been quarried sheer, undoubtedly for building material for the rest of the city. A seven-meter curtain wall ran in a more or less semicircle from cliff to cliff and surrounded a three-story inner keep. The curtain wall was thick, three meters across at the top and tapered outward as it descended, with a heavy bastion built right into the cliff face at either end. The only entrances to the bastions were through small doors on the inner side at the level of the top of the wall. The original doors were long since gone, but temporary doors were already being constructed. The upper stories of the bastions had been of wood and had burned down long ago, as had the upper story of the keep, but the lower stories were built into the wall, and the interior partitions were stone. These had withstood not only the Kranolta assault but also the ravages of time and even the unceasing onslaught of the Mardukan jungle.

Slits for javelins and spears were arrayed on the "wall-level," pointing outward. No inner first-story slits faced the top of the wall, but upper-level slits did just that, designed so that if the top of the wall were taken, fire could be poured into the attackers. There were also slits at the level of the bailey, so that if the attackers made it over the wall they could be attacked as they assaulted the keep.

The keep itself was a large, burned-out, vine-covered shell. The upper story, like those of the bastions, had been constructed of wood and was now charcoal. The rear of the keep, however, was dug deeply into the hillside, its roof supported by cleverly constructed stone buttresses, which provided a large, cavelike area that could be used to shield the pack beasts, wounded, and noncombatants. The flar-ta, kept from stampeding by chains stapled into the naked rock, were on the ground level, while the wounded and noncombatants waited on a raised shelf on the north side, along with Julian and the other power-armored Marines.

There were spear slits at the keep's bailey level, but the only exterior door was on the second floor, up a staircase. Vines covered the walls, and trees had grown up through the flagstones of the bailey, but other than the vegetation and the damage to the gates, the gray stone of the fortress was intact.

Third Platoon, which was still more or less at full strength, had been assigned the left side of the wall, while First and Second shared the right. Teams from both groups were working feverishly to construct barricades to replace the broken and decayed gates, and Sergeant Jin had been noting the locations of the platoon's troopers and their fields of fire. It was important to ensure that all possible approaches were covered and that the heaviest fire could be directed at the point where the enemy would be most likely to attack in force.

With that in mind, Jin had placed his grenadiers in locations covering the primary avenues of approach. He'd also pointed out to them the locations that the enemy was most likely to use for cover. There were, unfortunately, a lot of those. The citadel overlooked what had once been a densely populated city, and the shells of buildings still loomed above narrow, twisting streets. That would have been enough to mask the approach of any attackers by itself, but the ruins were also massively overgrown with vines, creepers, small trees, and jungle ferns, producing what were effectively well-screened trenches up to the foot of the citadel wall. Those would be the particular target of the grenadiers, since they were the only troopers whose weapons would allow them to drop indirect fire behind obstacles.

The platoon also had two plasma cannon. Given the failure of the power suits and the fact that this would be a stationary defense, the heavy cannon had been set up on their tripods. Jin intended to use them only against the heaviest concentrations of enemies, both because the Marines had developed a healthy distaste for the possible repercussions of firing them and because of the need to conserve their precious ammunition.

He was going to be without Julian and his team of suit-users. The inoperable suits had been lashed back onto the pack beasts, with their cursing users still trapped inside them, and carried out into the citadel. The gear was now scattered on one side of the bailey with Poertena working on it, but the personnel whose suits did work were going to be used as a reserve for the company as a whole. So it was with too few troops to man the section of wall he'd been given, with his heavy troopers missing, and the possibility, however remote, of losing half his platoon to exploding plasma cannon, that the gunnery sergeant found out he had a new responsibility.

"I'm your new platoon leader," Roger said.

"Pardon me?" Jin looked around. Corporal Casset was standing with his jaw dropped, but other than the corporal (and the pissed-off and tired looking shaman standing behind the prince) no one else had heard Roger's announcement. "Is this some sort of joke, Your Highness?"

"No, Gunnery Sergeant, it isn't," Roger said carefully. "Captain Pahner has asked me to `wear another hat.' He's appointed me to be your platoon leader."

"Oh," Jin said. He did not add "joy," for some unknown reason, but after a moment he went on with slightly glassy eyes. "Very well, Your Highness. If you'll give me a moment, I'll walk you through the defenses and explain the placements. I would ask for your comments and suggestions after that."

"Very well, Gunny. And, I think `Sir' would be appropriate. Or `Lieutenant.' I'm not really a prince in this assignment, as I understand things."

"Very well, Your . . . Sir," the sergeant said, shaking his head.

"Captain, we've gotten our people into position, and—"

"Shhh!" Pahner's hand waved Lieutenant Jasco to silence as the captain turned his head from side to side.

"Pardon me, Sir?" the lieutenant said after trying for a moment to figure out what he was looking at. All the lieutenant could see was the idiot prince talking to Gunny Jin.

"Shhh!" Pahner repeated, then grunted in satisfaction as he finally managed to get the directional microphone onto the conversation just as Jin realized what his company commander had done to him.

Lieutenant Jasco maintained a straight face as Captain Pahner did something the lieutenant would have flatly denied was possible. He giggled. It was an amazing sound to hear out of the tall, broad officer, and Pahner cut it off almost immediately. He listened for a few more seconds, then switched off the mike and turned to Jasco with a seraphic smile.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" he asked, still chuckling. "You were saying?"

"We've gotten all of our people into position, Sir. When do you think they're going to attack?"

"Lieutenant," Pahner looked at the sky, "your guess on that is as good as mine. But I think they'll wait until morning. It's getting late, and they've never hit us at night. I'll come by your positions in a bit. Go get with your platoon sergeant and figure out a chow rotation for right now."

He could smell Matsugae starting something on a fire.

Roger sniffed and looked towards the keep where Kostas had dinner well under way. The valet might just have put himself in harm's way to rescue a nobody trooper, but it didn't seem to have affected him at all. He'd simply gone back to organizing the camp. Maybe there was a lesson to learn there.

Roger turned and swept his gaze over the troopers still working all around him. Now that the basics had been done—setting up the heavy weapons, assigning fields of fire, putting up sandbags where stones had fallen from the battlements of the citadel wall—the Marines were improving their individual positions. Despite the intense heat, even more focused here inside the stone walls, the troopers worked without pause. They knew it would be too late to improve their chances of survival after the Kranolta hit.

Despreaux walked over to him, and he nodded to her.

"Sergeant," he said, and she nodded back and tossed him the small object in her hand.

"Nice folks."

Roger caught the item and blanched. It was a very small Mardukan skull, one side crushed. The horns were barely buds.

"There's a big pile of bones over in the bastion," she continued. "That was part of it. It looks like the defenders made some sort of stand."

Roger looked over the wall at the crumbled city below. He had enough experience now to imagine the horrors the castle's defenders would have observed as the rest of their city went up in roaring flame and massacre. And to imagine their despair as the gate crumbled and the Kranolta barbarians poured through. . . .

"I'm not really very happy with these fellows," he said, setting the skull gently on the parapet.

"I've seen worse," Despreaux said coldly. "I made the drop on Jurgen. Pardon me if I'm humanocentric, but . . . it was worse."

"Jurgen?" Roger couldn't place the name.

Despreaux's sculpted profile hardened, and a muscle in her jaw twitched.

"No place that mattered, Your Highness. Just a stinking little fringe world. Bunch of dirt-poor colonists, and a single town. A pirate ship dropped in for a visit. It was a particularly unpleasant bunch. By the time we got there, the pirates were long gone. The results weren't."

"Oh," Roger said. The attacks on border worlds were so common that they hardly ever made the news in the Home Regions. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing for you to be sorry about, Your Highness. Just something to remember; there's bad guys out there all the time. The only people who usually see them are the Fleet and the Marines. But when things get screwed up enough, this isn't so uncommon. The barbs are always at the door."

She touched the skull gently, then gave him another cool nod and walked back to where her squad was digging in. Roger continued looking out over the city, stroking the skull with a thumb, until Pahner walked up.

"How's it going, Lieutenant?"

"Just fine . . . Sir," Roger said distractedly, still gazing out over murdered Voitan. "Captain, can I say something as `His Highness' instead of `Lieutenant'?"

"Certainly," Pahner said with a smile. "Your Highness."

"I don't think it would be a good idea to leave an existing force in our rear, do you?"

"You're talking about the Kranolta?" Pahner glanced at the skull.

"Yes, Captain. How are we fixed for power for the suits?"

"Well," Pahner grimaced, "since we only have four of them up, not bad. Days and days with just four of them. But we need to get the rest up to have a hope in hell of taking the spaceport."

"But we have enough for a pursuit, don't we?"

"Certainly." Pahner nodded. "And you have a point about leaving remnants in our rear. I don't want to have to fight off ambushes from here to the next city-state."

"Good." Roger turned and looked the captain in the eye. "I don't think that the cause of civilization on this world would be advanced by leaving a single Kranolta alive, Captain. I would prefer that that not be the case after tomorrow."

Pahner regarded him steadily, then nodded.

"So would I, Your Highness. So would I. I think tomorrow we'll be building a samadh. To the honor of the Corps."