Under Strange Suns (38 page)

While he waited he covered several sheets of his notebook with identical maps of Girdled-by-Fields, drawing a broad oval for the walls, a couple wavy lines for the stream, and adding representations of a few of the prominent buildings for reference. He hoped his pen color would not be misleading, and that the monochromatic representation would resonate with the joon. Aidan tucked the notebook away, then began to pace, his eyes growing distant.

Had he done enough? What about concealed pit traps before the walls, filled with sharpened stakes? What about incendiaries? He hadn’t looked into that. Could he have filled a trench about the wall with the Ghark equivalent of lamp oil? Lure the Lhakovi in then fire the trap. He should have asked Yuschenkov about it. How many options had he failed to consider? Hell, he had created more elaborate plans in games of Dungeons and Dragons. Couldn’t he be as inventive now when it counted? He desperately desired to protect these people, but he feared he was out of his depth.

Elnecetic returned, Lieutenant Hemjeck pacing beside her. Aidan told himself to stow his doubts. He would have time to feel sorry for himself later, if he lived.

“Doc, Hemjeck is here.”

With Yuschenkov translating, Aidan laid out his plans. He proposed four reaction forces, two staged on either side of the stream. Lieutenant Hemjeck would command one, Checkok another. Command of the remaining two he left to Hemjeck’s judgment. Aidan would station himself near the center of the village with several runners. With the aid of the live feed, he would know where the enemy was going to attack in force. He could then send a runner, bearing a map torn from Aidan’s notebook, to the commander of the appropriate reaction force, the map marked with the location of the attack.

Hemjeck was–according to Yuschenkov’s asides–enthusiastic. “He especially likes the idea of the decoys. He’s had a lot of people volunteering to fight who have no business doing so. Now he can assign them combat tasks likely to keep them out of danger while still serving a vital role. He says you are a military visionary. Please note I did not laugh when I said it.”

“Duly noted,” Aidan said.

He accompanied Hemjeck while the lieutenant saw to the execution of the plan. A number of aides accumulated. Six of them, Aidan eventually understood, were tasked as his personal runners. He took a few moments to assure himself that they grasped what the map was intended to convey.

After a few hours of traipsing along with his retinue behind Hemjeck, Aidan truly began to wish he had slept longer. The lieutenant was a perpetual motion machine on rails of greased lightning. The false defenses rose about the parapets in their wake, teams of joon placing hats, the occasional helmet, even an upturned bucket, next to javelins set to show clearly above the wall.

While this work was ongoing, the Girdled-by-Fields militia, supplemented by such able-bodied joon as were fit to throw a javelin, and the warriors from outlying villages who had responded to the summons, assembled in a field that sprouted lavender-hued tubers about the diameter of Aidan’s wrist. The half-timber buildings of Girdled-by-Fields, to Aidan still appearing simultaneously familiar and subtly alien, rose behind the ranks. The suns illuminated both east and west horizons, throwing cross-cutting shadows in varied hues, and the blue gas giant was just rolling into view.

The militiamen presented a colorful, mismatched picture. Few wore any type of armor, with the exception of the Esaul’s knights, who were well-equipped–the only professional killers there other than Aidan himself, he realized. Most of the militia boasted at least some sort of helmet, though neither helmet nor the odd bit of armor showed much sign of uniformity. Most carried both sword and javelin. Only a very few carried crossbows. The rest–the farmers, masons, shop owners, and apprentices; the carpenters, smiths, and painters; joon of fighting age but without fighting experience–were unarmored, carrying sheaves of javelins and maybe a sharpened farming implement or a hammer. In total they were few, so few. Five hundred? Maybe, but fewer than half were enrolled in the militia proper, and the Girdled-by-Fields militia, such as it was, could be considered a military force only by courtesy. Yuschenkov had told it straight; these people needed him, needed what expertise he could provide.

In a properly run universe, he’d address the troops, give them a rousing speech before battle. Of course it
wasn’t
a properly run universe and pretty much every pre-action harangue Aidan had ever heard that lasted over twenty seconds had bored rather than motivated him.

Instead he clapped Hemjeck–gently–on the back, pointed to the troops, and offered a single, solemn nod. He wanted to indicate appreciation, approval, pride. But he was handicapped as much by lack of knowledge of joon body language as by spoken language. What would a one-armed people make of applause? Aidan knew that the ‘thumbs up’ wasn’t even acknowledged globally on earth. To some cultures it signified a vulgarity. Now wasn’t the time for practical anthropology, or xeno-anthropology, or whatever the hell the study of alien cultures was called. So he left it at that simple gesture.

Hemjeck appeared to have grasped it well enough. He nodded back, then stepped forward to give the speech.

Aidan hoped Hemjeck wouldn’t bore the troops. He couldn’t understand a word of it, so once Hemjeck passed the twenty-second mark he zoned out, hoping his presence would be of some value.

So far, Aidan allowed, the defense of Girdled-by-Fields was proceeding pretty well. Despite the lack of numbers, the lack of training, and the lack of armor. He called up the live feed, wanting to do something more useful than look pretty for the troops.

The tiny screen showed that the campsite established near his ambush zone was empty. Aidan scrolled the view north, covering miles of increasingly gentle country before finding the baggage train. The Lhakovi army was on the move and looked to have been so for at least a couple of hours.

Shit. Getting close to game time.

Aidan realized Hemjeck had wound it up. Good officer. Good speech, at least insofar as it was brief. Hemjeck was looking at him expectantly. Aidan dug out his notebook. Gesturing at one of his maps, he indicated the four quadrants they had discussed earlier. He pointed at the troops, then made a rolling “get on with it” gesture with one hand.

Hemjeck moved off to issue instructions. Aidan decided that he liked a subordinate who did not require a great deal of detail.

“Radio,” Aidan said. Then, “McAvoy, I hope you’re on the way.”

“We are indeed, Captain. Took a bit longer than I’d hoped, but we’re heading your direction.”

“Shit. I was hoping you were going to say you’d left early. Hit the thrusters. The Lhakovi are on the move.”

“How much time do we have? I’m trucking a damned heavy pile of metal here, I can go only so fast.”

“Wait one.”

Aidan jumped to a different frequency.

“Carson for the
Yuschenkov
.”

“Matamoros here. Go ahead, Carson.”

“Ask the computer to calculate the current speed of the army and estimate its time of arrival to within, say, a kilometer of the walls.”

“They’re making good time,” Matamoros said a moment later. “Advance elements will reach you in six hours, plus or minus fifteen minutes. The main army two hours after. Does that give you enough time? Will Doctor Yuschenkov be finished?”

“No sweat. Everything is copacetic down here. Thanks, Matamoros.”

Aidan switched frequencies again.

“Haul ass, McAvoy. You’ve got less than six hours, or you’re going to be dodging patrols.”

“Fucking hell. I don’t know, Carson.”

“You can make it. Don’t think about it. Just push on hard. If you run into a patrol, use the pistol if you have to.”

“Fucking hell. Okay. But you owe me a drink, Carson.”

“Done. Just get your ass back here. Carson out.”

T
HE LOOKOUT POSTED ON THE SOUTHERNMOST
tower called a warning. Not a surprise to Aidan, who’d been observing the Lhakovi progress for the last hour. Watching the scouting patrol inch nearer on the screen of his datapad, he’d been expecting the alarm to sound at any time.

At least they’d had time to position the four reaction forces. Time to install a ring of fake defenders about the parapet. Time to get a meal in everyone. Even time for soldiers to move off in twos and threes to hit the latrines. And if joon psychology was anything like human, time for nervousness to grow, to be gradually replaced by a desire for the enemy to get here already, to get it over with.

McAvoy still hadn’t shown, though his last panting report indicated that he was getting close, about an hour or two out. Yuschenkov’s report had been to tell Aidan to stop bothering him if he wanted the job done on time.

And now the Girdled-by-Fields militia had its first sight of the feared Lhakovi army. Or a tiny fraction of it.

Aidan climbed to the parapet to see it firsthand. A half company–about twenty-four soldiers–approached, following the east bank of the stream. It stopped out of bowshot. Not that Aidan had any crossbowmen stationed on the wall. Certainly out of javelin range. Aidan thought that with a couple of preliminary ranging shots, he might be able to plink one or two of them with his pistol, but it wasn’t worth the ammunition.

Two scouts returned southwards. The remainder turned right and commenced a circuit of the defenses. Aidan considered a sortie, rejected it. Let them scout. Maybe a report of the strength of the walls, the number of javelins reflecting dim lavender pinpricks from the westering Freg, would give the Lhakovi commander pause. Hell, perhaps he’d have second thoughts, turn around and go home.

Yeah. That was going to happen.

Aidan’s implant hissed a mike check as his datapad received a radio call.

“Aidan, Brooklynn.”

“Well hello, Brooklynn. How’s everything in outer space?”

“Tedious. Feels like we’re just going around in circles, not getting anywhere.”

Aidan laughed, ignoring the looks his team of runners cast him. “Come on down to Ghark if the tedium is getting to you. The joint is hopping.”

“Are you okay?” Vance asked. Aidan heard concern. Perhaps too much, and perhaps she thought so as well. “Is the plan still intact, or has it fallen apart at first contact with the enemy?”

“Too early to say. The guests have begun to arrive but the party hasn’t really started to swing. I figure we’ve got a couple more hours before we’ll know if I’m a military genius or not.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m betting on genius. And I can’t find anyone in the crew here willing to take that wager.”

“Thanks, Brooklynn. Look, my troops are starting to look at me funny. If this all works out, I should be seeing you soon. If not...well, it’s been a pleasure.”

“Except for this last bit, you mean. But, likewise Aidan. Vance out.”

Well, that was unexpected. But...nice
. Aidan caught himself drifting.
Focus
, he told himself.
If I live, if we can get off the ground, if any number of things then...then we’ll see
.

* * *

The Lhakovi army swelled on the horizon, expanded, and rolled inexorably toward the walls.

“Here we go,” Aidan muttered.

He looked up at the sky. If this had been one of the D&D games Captain Merit ran, the clouds would build and the rains would come. And there would go Aidan’s major advantage–the live feed. Next the dirt walls would slump as they grew saturated with rain and turned to mud. Then he’d have to argue to Merit that the rain would loosen the enemy’s bow-strings and lessen distance and accuracy, try to gain something from the shit Merit was tossing his way. But the sky remained clear, the evening still bright with the lights of the primary sun and the gas giant. No gods were playing a cosmic game with him.

Aidan called McAvoy again. He was still some way out. The motorized loader was having some difficulties clearing a field and he and his miners were manhandling it across.

Still, Aidan figured he would have a bit more time. The Lhakovi would pause to reorganize and reconnoiter. Maybe even establish camp, get a night’s rest before the assault.

But the army did not slow as it neared. An odd, wavelike motion caught Aidan’s attention, rippling through the advancing army. He squinted. Was that..? Yes, the rear ranks were passing ladders forward to the leading ranks.

Oh crap, here they come
.

Aidan checked the live feed. He saw no hidden forces. No sign of feint or deception. This was going to be a direct, immediate attack on the southeastern quadrant. He ripped a map from his pad, hesitated a moment. Should he bring up both of the eastern reaction forces, or just the southeast? Best to maintain a reserve for now.

He marked the southeastern force and drew a line to the southeastern parapets, then handed the sheet to a runner.

The sounds began to reach him. An arrhythmic tramping, the jangling of harness, the harsh barking of voices. Wooden ladder struts clashing overhead.

Noise then reached him from behind. The reaction force poured up all the nearby stairways, lining the parapets, real soldiers filling the gaps between their artificial counterparts.