Джеффри Лорд - Return To Kaldak

Inside he found the pilot struggling with the controls, trying to lift off but so panic-stricken he'd forgotten which buttons to push. The lifter was just beginning to lift when Blade clubbed him across the back of the skull with a rifle butt. He dropped back into his seat, and the lifter dropped back to the ground.

A moment later both Blade and Ezarn had to run for their lives as the Kaldakan sky-tug swooped in with its lasers blazing away. They barely got the unconscious Doimari under cover before the captured lifter blew up. Blade swore again.

The explosions woke up one of the Doimari. He looked at the flaming shambles around him and laughed hysterically. «You think you've won tonight, Kaldakan. You think you've won. But rest assured: we'll have our vengeance. Your city will look like this. Your own precious foolish Kaldak with no Sky Master to save youuuu-unh!» as Exarn knocked him unconscious again.

Blade and Ezarn looked at each other. «Wonder what he meant by that?» said the big man, rubbing his knuckles. «They maybe got some new kind of Fighting Machine?»

«I think he must have been hysterical,» said Blade, sounding calmer than he felt. He remembered that crater with the metal shards and the electronic antennae on the hut. But if the Doimari were testing a secret weapon, why would they put their test station way out here in the Tribal lands, so far from their city and so vulnerable to enemy attack?

Blade was still trying to puzzle out the mystery when the rest of the paratroop company started to arrive, guided by the flames and the indignant radio messages from the sky-tug. It didn't help the commander's temper to discover that while he was trying to find his objective, the newest recruit in the company had won the battle almost single-handedly.

If it had been up to the company commander, Blade probably wouldn't have received credit for his heroism. Grudi had been unconscious for most of the fight, and Ezarn had a bad reputation as a brawler and a drunk. They were the only Kaldakan witnesses.

Unfortunately for the commander, Ezarn had a much better reputation among his fellow soldiers than he did among the officers. They knew that when he called a new recruit «One-Man Army Voros,» he should be listened to. So they listened, and in a day Blade's story was all over the company.

The Intelligence officers also heaped praise on Blade. Thanks to his quick work, they had several Doimari prisoners and a good description of the antennae. They were grateful and said so where higher-ranking officers than the company commander heard it.

Blade privately wished both Ezarn and the Intelligence officers would drop dead. He realized now that he'd reacted to stumbling on the Doimari as he usually did. He'd attacked, and so successfully that he'd made himself conspicuous again-the last thing he wanted to do in this Dimension!

Being an efficient and deadly fighting machine, it seemed, was a hard habit to break.

With the immediate area cleared of both Doimari and Tribesmen, a balloon train could land safely. It brought another company of the Fourth Battalion, with mortars and fresh ammunition. It took out the casualties, the Doimari prisoners, and the Intelligence officers. None of the prisoners would voluntarily answer a single question, so they were on their way to Kaldak and a session with the truth-seers.

The two companies moved toward their assigned position, leaving the mysterious crater behind before Blade could visit it in daylight. From conversations he overheard, there were other craters, but how many, how big, and where he couldn't tell. He didn't dare ask, either-that kind of curiosity was something sure to be noticed. He roundly cursed the fates again, for putting him in a situation where he had to spend so much time protecting his own secrets that he couldn't learn any of the secrets of this Dimension!

At least this was a Dimension he'd visited before, so it didn't have that many secrets. Also, the Kaldakans seemed able to take care of their enemies without needing his help. He wouldn't be hurting anything important by lurking as Private Voros until the time came for him to return Home.

As the two companies marched, scouts reported that the Tribesmen were abandoning their villages and scattering into the hills and forests. Sometimes the scouts or a sky-tug would burn a few houses in one of the abandoned villages, to keep the Tribesmen moving. Otherwise the two sides were leaving each other pretty much alone.

Blade wondered if both sides were saving their strength for a big fight? Or were the Tribesmen expecting that the Doimari would come to their rescue, or at least avenge them with the secret weapon-if there was one?

At last the two companies made contact with the main Kaldakan force. More Tribesmen had escaped than anyone liked, but some five hundred warriors were now trapped between the two Kaldakan forces. They had most of the livestock of several villages with them, so they could be a good prize. The Kaldakans got ready to round up the herds and their herdsmen.

Blade's luck was going to hold in at least one thing. The enemy were all warriors. He still wouldn't have to shoot women and children.

«Open fire!»

Six stubby-barreled mortars went off in one long rolling crash. Six ten-pound shells went soaring over the top of the ridge to the west. A minute later the distant sound of explosions echoed from the valley. A signal lamp winked from a tree on the ridge line.

«Over and to the right,» shouted the mortar commander. The mortar crews bent to make the adjustments, while the loaders stood ready with the next rounds.

Blade watched the activity with the eye of a professionally trained spectator. His platoon was assigned as security for the mortars. The nearest Tribesman was a good mile away, on the far side of the ridge and likely to stay there alive or dead. As the Fighting Machines advanced up the valley, they were supposed to drive the Tribesmen into the mortar fire.

It wasn't a bad plan, Blade knew. If it worked half as well as it was supposed to, the Tribesmen were finished, and no battle plan ever worked better than that. Now if the Tribesmen just did what they were supposed to. .

The mortars crashed again; the echoes rolled up from beyond the ridge again. So did a growing cloud of smoke. The Kaldakan mortar shells weren't the best Blade had ever seen, but any weapon is good enough if it hits you.

Then a crash of a very different kind sounded, from behind Blade. Forty soldiers whirled around like puppets jerked by their strings. Something trailing bluish smoke hissed overhead. The smoke trail ended at the base of the observer's tree. Black smoke and flying branches rose in an ugly mushroom.

Another rocket went over, bursting close beside the first. Blade saw a glimmer of green laser-light just below the rocket. So the Doimari had developed laser guidance systems for their rockets? And infiltrated a launcher team into the rear of the Kaldakans? They deserved credit for both their technology and their tactics.

Then Blade had to abandon his professional detachment. The platoon commander shouted, «Forward! Get those bastards!» then died with her mouth open as a third rocket hit the piled mortar ammunition. Fragments and whole shells flew in all directions, and one of them tore into the commander's chest. Another soldier had his head ripped off. His blood sprayed over Blade as he started to move out.

The attack got only a few steps before several lasers opened up, along with something like a grenade launcher. At least grenades which couldn't have been launched by hand were suddenly bursting among the Kaldakans.

That stopped the attack almost before it began. The platoon went to cover in the long dry grass of the meadow, moving only when grenade or laser-set fires burned too close. Some of the wounded couldn't move in time. Blade heard their desperate pleas for help, then their screams as they burned alive.