The Fleet Book 2: Counter Attack (12 page)

Our descent to the surface of Target was swift, and yet it seemed long indeed, because we didn’t know what awaited us below. It seemed entirely possible that this attack had been betrayed, for it was known that there were spies even among the professionals of the Fleet, men with a taste for money, whose easy consciences allowed them to sell out their own people in the comfortable expectation that the Alliance would win anyhow, so what difference would it make? The Khalia could set a trap for this destroyer as it dropped noiselessly through Target’s atmosphere. Their best strategy would be to let it land without opposition; then destroy it and everyone aboard it in a single overwhelming assault, mounted and carried out before any support could be brought in. Indeed, we couldn’t even ask for help; for the entire operation was to be performed in radio silence.

Treachery, indeed, is the theme of this story of mine, but this is not where it occurred. Our destroyer put down without incident, kissing the dark ground of Target without a sound as we officers urged our men out of the hatches, fast, fast. The black night sky was pocked with distant silent explosions of light and color as the Fleet, high above us in battle formation, opened up a bombardment on the advance scout ships of the Khalia coordinating this action to mask our landing.

The last of our battle group tumbled but, and the destroyer went into lift mode even before the hatches were dogged shut, pushing away from the planet like a gale-driven schooner clawing off a lee shore, hoping to find maneuvering room in space before it was detected and brought down by the Khalian defense batteries.

As for us, once on land, I and the other Captains took command of our squads and by prearrangement led them in different directions. Our first necessity was to disperse, get under cover, make an assessment of the situation, find out what troops were opposing us and in what numbers, and then hit the enemy and hit him hard.

We were hampered at the beginning by a lack of decent maps, because very little mapping of Target had been completed before the assault. We had bought plenty of maps of course—seamen from the merchant fleets often came into contact with aliens who were themselves in contact with the Khalians. They sold their maps to the Fleet, and the Fleet paid them and hoped for the best. As I had feared, what I had in my hand didn’t correspond to what lay around me. So different was the reality from the fanciful documents which the Fleet had given us that I told my men to put the useless things away, since they would only serve to confuse us, and sketch out new maps as they went along.

We had come down to the south of a small city or camp, artificially lit, with streets running for many miles along a bay that opened into the ocean. We had named it Enemy City and assumed it was of some importance. Above us the skies were turning lurid and bright with plasma explosions as more and more ships joined the space battle. It was time we did something for the war effort. I checked out my men, then led them toward Enemy City, hoping that the other commanders shared my view that it was the obvious target.

We set up the four plasma cannons on two ridges commanding the city, sited to pour down enfilading fire. The remaining men were dug in facing the rear, to defend the gunners if our position should be attacked. I took time to make sure that the gunners had the necessary windage corrections. Dawn was just glimmering when I stood up, lifted a white handkerchief, easily visible in the lightening gloom, and brought it down sharply.

Golden tracks arced across the sky in a flat trajectory. By the erupting fireballs which rose upon contact we saw that we were hitting the target. For a moment we could see a dust-colored, earth-hugging city of one- and two-storied adobe buildings with a scattering of larger structures. I was reminded of photographs I had seen of Timbuktu and Omdurman on Earth. Was Enemy City a place like those? I wish I had had time to photograph it, but we blew a lot of it to bits before it fully registered on our consciousness, and then I assembled the men and marched them away at the double. I hated to give up the high ground, but I had to assume that someone would begin firing back.

We stumbled down the hillside, charging toward Enemy City. We ran through narrow ravines that snaked toward the city gates. A hundred yards from the low, mud wall that surrounded the city we encountered our first resistance: a small rectangular guardhouse with slit windows, like some old Crusader fortress. We blew it apart with two hits from the laser cannon, and the first Khalia we saw were dead, slender chestnut-furred creatures with gun belts around their waists, from which depended a variety of pistols and swords.

We had barely regrouped when a mob of Khalia came running toward us from the burning city. Backlit by the flames, unable to see us crouching in the ravine, they ran toward us and died, and we killed them with the plasma cannons until we ran out of cartridges, and then we killed them with stingers and cluster pistols, and at last with our bent-bladed knives, until there were no more around to kill. Not long after that we took possession of Enemy City.

IV.

Full daylight found me and my squad occupying a small tower in the center of the city. We had chosen a building made of heavy granite blocks, miraculously not destroyed by our bombardment. This structure, which we later learned was called Guildhall, sat by itself in the middle of a plaza, giving us an open field of fire on all sides. This was important, because we expected a counterattack to be mounted against us at any moment. So far, we had had it all our way, but we knew that couldn’t last forever. After all, we were sitting somewhere on the Khalian home planet. I just hoped that Colonel Bar Kochba had arranged for a second wave to be sent in. I expected all hell to break loose any minute.

The light on our field radio started flashing soon after noon, signaling the end of radio silence. It was Colonel Bar Kochba, and he asked me to report my squad’s situation.

“We’ve taken over a city,” I told him. “Not much resistance. No casualties. But I don’t know what happens next. We’re sitting right in the middle of this place and expecting to get attacked any time.”

“You can relax a little,” Bar Kochba said. “We have visual and radar surveillance over your entire sector. There are no Khalian troop concentrations in sight.”

“What about the other squads?” I asked him.

“They’ve all reached their objectives. We had some losses when Teams 4 and 7 hit the spaceport. Only four men. So far we’re coming out of this miraculously well.”

“What about the spaceport?”

“We destroyed it.”

“And the battle in space?”

“A very big victory for the Fleet. The Khalia seemed to have no general battle plan. Just a mass of ships attacking on an individual basis. The Fleet knocked down a lot of them. The rest went into FTL drive and got away.”

I needed a moment to digest all this. “Then we’ve won!” I cried.

“Yes, obviously,” Bar Kochba said. He didn’t sound too excited about it. “I guess we could call it winning.”

“I don’t understand your reservations over this,” I told him. “We’ve mauled their fleet and captured their home planet. Doesn’t that mean that the war is over?”

“My dear ben Judah,” Bar Kochba said, “I guess I must bring you up to date on the latest findings. Preliminary reports show that the planet Target is or was an important staging area for the Khalian raider ships. We have won an important victory. But this planet Target seems
not
to be the Khalian home planet.”

One of the members of my squad had come into the room I was using for radio transmission. He was making gestures and pointing outside. I made a gesture at him that was meant to mean, wait a minute, can’t you see I’m talking on the radio?

“If this isn’t the Khalian home planet,” I said, “then who does it belong to?”

“How the hell should
I
know?”
Bar Kochba said. “You’re the Intelligence Officer. Find out.”

“All right,” I said, “What about the Khalia?”

“You’ll have to be on your guard at all times. Preliminary reports indicate there are at least a few thousand of them left on the planet.”

“Right, sir. We’ll be careful. How much longer will we be down here?”

“Quite a while,” Bar Kochba said, with what might have been a dry chuckle. “Our Battle Group has done so well that the Fleet Command has assigned us to garrison duty here.”

Bar Kochba signed off. At last I was able to give my attention to my gesticulating squadman.

“What is it, Gideon?”

“Some people outside are demanding to see you at once.”

“People? Do you mean human people, or Khalian people?”

“Neither, Judah. These are what, I guess are the indigenous people who live on this planet.”

“Good,” I said. “About time we found out who this planet belongs to. I’ll see them at once.”

Gideon nodded. Our armed forces are very casual. “I’ll show them in.” He had a curious expression on his face. Almost like he was laughing about something. I couldn’t figure it out until a few minutes later, when he led the delegation in to the room.

I suppose that “people” can refer to anything that can carry on an intelligent conversation. We sometimes call the Khalians “people,” and they resemble four-foot weasels. So perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised when Gideon ushered in four bipeds of approximately six feet in height, dressed in long robes which concealed the greater part of their bodies. What I could see of their bodies, however, were scaled and feathered. Their feet were claw-like, and their small heads, at the end of skinny scrawny necks were the small heads of birds.

V.

Thus I met my first Nedge, as they called themselves, the nomadic bird-people of Target. And while other humans turned to the major question of the day, the question of where the Khalian home planet was, since it wasn’t here, I turned to rounding up the remaining Khalia on Target, gathering intelligence, and arbitrating the I differences that come up between our troops and the Nedge.

My first meeting did not have too auspicious a beginning. I welcomed the four Nedge, had chairs brought for them, offered them refreshments. I was trying to begin on the right note, because I knew we would need their cooperation to help us find, capture, or kill the remaining Khalia.

But my words, intended to put them at ease, seemed to, give them problems. They conferred hastily among themselves, gabbling and clucking and shaking their wattles. Finally they reached some sort of decision, and the eldest among them, whom I later came to know as Kingfisher, since his Nedgean name was unpronounceable, stepped forward, flapped his rudimentary wings twice, cleared his throat, and spoke in quite passable English, though marked, inevitably, with a broad avian accent.

“You do us much honor,” Kingfisher said, “but that’s your problem. If you wish us to sit, we’ll sit. Just remember, we didn’t propose anything of the sort ourselves.”

I had Gideon fetch some of the folding canvas chairs that had been sent down with our supplies from the Fleet. The Nedge tried to imitate the way I sat, but it soon became obvious that their bones weren’t jointed like ours. Still, they managed finally, at cost of putting their feathers into considerable disarray, and Kingfisher said, “Am I correct in assuming that this is a form of abasement or does the posture have some other meaning?”

“It has nothing to do with abasement,” I told him.
“I am honoring you as my friends and guests.”

“This is how you treat a friend?” Kingfisher said. “I’d hate to see what you make an enemy do.”

“Where I come from,” I told him, “sitting signifies a meeting of equals. But suit yourself, stand up if you want.”

“No, no,” Kingfisher said. “We are honored that you consider us your equals. Sitting is grotesque and uncomfortable, but what does that matter when you consider the honor it conveys?” He translated. this for the others, who gobbled their appreciation.

“Gentlemen,” I said, “let me start off by telling you how happy I was to be able to rid you and your people of the oppressive rule of the Khalia.”

“Is that what you call them?” Kingfisher” said. “
Panya
, that’s what we call them. We also call them ‘the dwarf people with too many teeth.’ There are other names. Yes, we meant to thank you for that. Of course, the Khalia aren’t really gone, you know.”

“We’ll soon take care of that,” I told him. “We will expect your cooperation, of course.”

“I cannot speak for the rest of my Guild,” Kingfisher said. “For myself, I can assure you, you will get the full honors suitable to your rank.”

Kingfisher was a high official of the Tinker’s Guild. The others represented, variously, the Nest-Builder’s Guild, the Seaweed Purveyor’s Guild, and the Interior Decorator’s Guild.

These were by no means all of the guilds of the Nedge.

This intelligent avian race had divided itself into more than three hundred functions or duties, each of them the prerogative of a guild. Even murder was represented in the form of the Assassin’s Guild, known poetically as the Guild Without a Nest.

Their planet, poor in minerals and deficient in croplands, had been little disturbed by the various waves of traders and raiders that had become manifest over the last thousand years or so. The Khalia had come across the Nedge only about fifty years ago, had found their planet a good staging ground for their space fleets, and had taken over the political power from the guilds. Before the arrival of the Khalia, the Nedge had been ruled by a council made up of the leading members of all the Guilds. This council decided matters requiring arbitration between the guilds. The Khalia had left this structure intact, but had placed themselves at the head of it. Until our arrival, all the larger questions had been decided by a Khalian overlord, and the Nedge had greatly resented this.

Now I told them, as tactfully as I was able, that we, the representatives of the Fleet, were the ones who had to be obeyed. They didn’t like this, of course, but it had to be said.

Kingfisher and the others held a hurried conference. They gobbled and chittered with each other, in that bad-tempered, exasperated way some birds have. At last they seemed to agree about something, and Kingfisher turned to me.