David Weber - March to the Sea - Empire of Man Book II

"Huh?" he remarked suspiciously and glanced around at the other members of the dinner party.

Cord was doing his best to look inscrutable, but the company had been around Mardukans long enough to recognize suppressed mirth. O'Casey had set down her morsel uneaten as she raised an eyebrow at the cook, but Kosutic-after a look around-ostentatiously popped her next bite into her mouth and chewed with obvious relish.

"What did you say it was?" the sergeant major asked innocently.

"I finally found out what 'basik' meant when I was shopping in the market," the valet told her with a puckish grin. "It's the Mardukan version of a rabbit. It's apparently shy and somewhat stupid, and it's generally herded into a circle and killed with clubs."

"Hah!" Roger laughed. He raised his glass of the local sweet wine and took a drink. "To the basik!"

"Hear, hear," Kosutic agreed, clearing her own full mouth. "And to more basik, too!" she added, looking poignantly at the empty serving platter.

"Oh, I imagine something can be done about that," Matsugae told her with a smile, and bowed himself out of the tent to a spatter of applause.

"While we're waiting for the Sergeant Major's basik," Pahner said, "I think we need to discuss tomorrow's march."

"You think we'll get hit, Sir?" Gunny Jin asked. The NCO popped a roll of sweetened barleyrice into his mouth and shrugged. "If it happens, what else is there to do? We rally around the prince and form a square."

"Maybe, and maybe not," Pahner said. "We're about out of ammunition for the light weapons, but we have the full loadout, almost, for the heavy weapons. I've been thinking that there should be a way to get them into action quickly."

"Not one that I see immediately, Captain," Gunny Lai said. She leaned back and looked at the ceiling of the tent. "We can't keep the armor going without wearing out the power packs; the little skimp of energy we've been collecting with the solar sheets isn't enough to recharge with. And without the armor, the heavies are pretty impossible to use in a close-contact fight."

"I was wondering," Roger said diffidently. "Do you think that there's a way to mount one on a flar-ta? Not a plasma cannon, obviously, but maybe one of the stutter cannons?"

"Uh." Gunny Jin frowned, considering with obvious care. "One of those things has a hell of a recoil, even with the buffers. How are we going to secure it?"

"I don't know," Pahner said. "But that's the sort of thing I was thinking of, and we certainly need to find a way to use the firepower we have left. I'm not sure we'll make it to the coast if we don't."

"We could try it with Patty," Roger said with growing enthusiasm. "Mount it behind the mahout's spot. The driver will just have to keep his head down. I've fired just about everything else off her back by now; firing a cannon shouldn't be all that much worse."

"I don't know about that," Kosutic said with a shake of her head. "There's a whole order of difference between firing a grenade launcher or that old smoke pole of yours and firing a stutter gun offhand."

"You thinking of Old Man Kenny?" Jin asked her with a chuckle.

"Yeah," Kosutic said with a laugh of her own. "That was more or less what I was thinking about."

"Old Man Kenny?" Roger asked. He picked up a sliver of candied apsimon (which didn't taste a lot better to human tastebuds than uncandied apsimon) and raised an eyebrow. "Care to enlighten us poor mortals?"

"No big story, Your Highness," Pahner told him. "Retired Sergeant Major Kenny is an instructor in the Heavy Weapons advanced course at Camp DeSarge. There've always been war stories about people firing plasma cannons and bead cannons 'offhand' or without them being properly mounted, so he decided to try it and see if there was really anything to them. He's a big guy," the CO added parenthetically.

"Did it work?"

"Well, sort of," Kosutic said.

"He hit the target, Your Highness," Pahner said with a slight smile and another sip of wine. "But he ended up about ten meters from where he started with a couple of cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder. He wouldn't have been able to hit the next one."

"Hmmm." Roger took a sip of his own wine. "So the straps had better be strong and tight."

"At the least," Pahner agreed. "The gun is going to convey a kick like a civan to the packbeast. I don't know what the damned thing is going to do then."

"Damnthings live on a different planet, Captain Pahner," Roger said with a grin. "I know; I've hunted them."

"Nonetheless, Your Highness," the Marine told him, "when we try it out it won't be with Patty and with you as the mahout. We'll have one of the professionals handle Betty, who's a bit more ... biddable than Patty. And you won't be at the controls of the cannon, either. That's a job for a private."

"Oh, all right," Roger agreed with a small chuckle. "You undoubtedly know best."

"Uh-huh," Kosutic said as one of the mahouts followed Matsugae back into the tent with a huge platter of basik legs. "He does. He really does."

"I hope you know what you're about, cousin." Honal looked towards the sound of distant booms and the occasional bugle of a pagee in distress. "It doesn't sound good over there."

"These 'humans' should have nothing against us," Rastar said as he mounted his own civan. The beasts showed the effects of deprivation almost as badly as their riders did; the pride of his father's stables had become as gaunt as a cheap hack. "And they can undoubtedly do with some additional guards ... particularly judging from that." He drew the first of his pistols and inserted the winding key to test the tension on the wheel lock drive spring. It was ready, and he grunted in satisfaction, opened the sealed pan, positioned the flint striker against the serrated wheel, and then jerked his head in the direction of the sounds of combat while he reached for a second weapon. "If we bargain well, they may not even realize that they can get us for the cost of a barrel of fredar!"

Honal slapped the sides of his head in agitation, then sighed.

"All right! Lead on. And this time, I'll make sure not to try to take them over!"

Roger's head jerked up as the first line of scummies burst from the undergrowth. The tribesmen had been hidden in the jungle to one side of the beaten-down path between the two city-states, and their charge had caught the caravan by surprise, perfectly positioned in a narrow channel between the jungle and the Chasten River, with no room to evade them.

The prince checked his immediate impulse to order the mahout to countercharge with the aggressive flar-ta and threw his rifle to his shoulder instead. He caught one of the better dressed scummy barbarians in his sights and squeezed just as the ragged line came to a momentary halt and hurled its throwing axes.

It was the first time the company had dealt with that particular threat, but they were ready for it. The Marines on the ground lifted their Roman-style shields (design courtesy of one Roger MacClintock), and the rain of small axes scattered off of them like hail. It was sharp hail, however, as a yelp of pain from one of the riflemen proved. The wounded private hobbled backwards, his calf a bloody mess, and his place was taken by one of the second rank.

The humans were badly outnumbered, and the scummies hit them at the run, but the shield wall stopped them cold. The barbarians had never encountered the technique, and the bristle of spears from the rear rank, coupled with the stabbing short swords of the front rank, baffled them.

They paused, uncertain how to respond, and that momentary check was their doom. The stalled line of tribesmen was perfect meat for a tactic so antiquated to the humans that it was practically prehistoric. The sergeant major barked a command, and the Marines showed that perfect drill for which they were justly famous, jabbing their swords forward in unison and stepping forward to drive the tribesmen back from the vulnerable mounts.