Hugin and Munin had not only channeled the stampede into the crater but almost doubled the stampede's drive forward.
Into the crater.
Directly toward the Jann cruiser.
The Jann com center was a confusion of gabble: "Negative observation on firestart"... "Alpha patrol, this is base. Alpha patrol, do you receive this station?"... "In the name of Talamein, stop them!"... "All stations... all stations to General Quarters"... and then a long, blood-chilling shriek from one speaker.
The shriek came from the lone Jann soldier on observation point as the charging cattle broke through the savannah and reached his position. He held the trigger back to full automatic on his projectile weapon, and three animals rolled and were swallowed up as the rest of the herd boiled over the Jann.
The cattle thundered on. Even though they had heard the rush of the charge, the men in the weapons pits outside the floodlit glare had little time. To a man, they died under the axe-sharp hooves of the herd.
The Jann cruiser was barely twenty meters ahead of them.
There was no way or time for them to turn.
Sten. crouched high in one tree in the grove closest to the cruiser, didn't even have time to finish his flashed-curio equation:
To calculate the changes in velocity of a body (the Turnmaa) when a certain force is applied (stampeding cattle), the formula is—clottin' hell!
That solid black wave of cattle hit the equally solid Jann cruiser... and the stampede kept on coming.
And like a wave, it crested higher as animal dove over dead animal into the cruiser.
Fifty meters away, Sten could hear the alarms roar inside the cruiser.
The huge ship tottered on its landing jacks... rocked... and one small phalanx of animals slammed into it.
The Jann cruiser rolled, jack supports bending and snapping, and crashed to the ground.
Sten could feel the smash, even over the rolling thunder of the stampede.
Which was...just below him.
And, of course, the animals broke neatly, dividing around the trees, and continued their panic run off into the blackness.
Sten dropped out of the tree and hurtled toward the cruiser, clambered over the dead and dying animals, just as the Turnmaa settled on one side. The weapons in the top turrets were parallel to the ground.
Sten's willygun came off his shoulder, and he scrabbled up the cruiser's side, feeling a fingernail tear and break away. The turret hummed into life, just as Sten shoved his willygun's muzzle into the shrouding around the chain-gun's barrels.
He yanked the trigger all the way back and held it.
The willygun contained 1400 rounds. Each "bullet," while barely 1mm in diameter, was made of Antimatter Two, the same substance used to drive starships. Each "bullet" was in its individual Imperium shield, and laser-fired.
One round, on impact, would have about the same explosive force as a twentieth-century handgrenade.
It took twenty rounds to sledgehammer through the shrouding, into the turret's inside. And then:
Picture liquid dynamite exploding. Picture the heart of a fusion reactor, sans lethal radiation.
The picture of hell.
Sten let 500 rounds whisper/and/crash into the turret, then dove straight down, as the explosion boiled up, spraying the steel of the turret out the gun mounting.
Sten tuck-rolled in midair, then thunked down on a fairly convenient steer. He whirled as footsteps thudded up and:
"Ah tol' you there be naught ae useful like ae coo," Alex said, helping him onto his feet.
And then the world turned into chaos as:
Dilti, Bet. and the Stralbo warriors roared out of the darkness; Hugin and Munin. seemingly enjoying themselves immensely, loped out to join the Lake People's charge; Doc panted up, muttering unintelligibly, and...
Ida was standing beside them, her willygun spitting out measured bursts as Jann warriors tried to retake the turret, and:
"Ah'm Red Rory a' th' Coos," Alex bellowed, and leaped straight up the cruiser's side. Caught hold of some ripped hull plate and dove into the hole where that turret had been.
Sten, somehow, was right beside him, and then they were inside.
Flashing moments of red gore:
Diln, a fixed smile on her face, as she slowly spitted a Jann officer against a bulkhead;
The whistle of spears wailing down a long corridor into a knot of panicked Jann troops;
Alex ripping a compartment door off its dogs and spinning it into squad weapon as its gunner tugged uselessly at a jammed tripod;
Ida calmly snapping shots as a platoon of Jann, assembled in one hold, maneuvered forward;
Bet, on the back of not particularly pleased Hugin. Munin soaring ahead of her, smashing down three Jann.
And then silence.
The red fog faded, and Sten looked around.
They were in the ship's control room. Bodies were scattered across the room, and blood seemed to trickle everywhere.
On one side, a handful of Stralbo warriors, spears ready. The cats. The Mantis troopers. Sten.
And, his back to the semicircular main control panel, the Jann captain.
In full uniform.
"Talamein spoke against us," the captain said. "We have not found favor in his eyes."
Sten didn't answer, just walked toward him.
"You are the leader of this rabble?" the captain asked.
He took Sten's silence for assent.
"Then it is only right and fitting," the captain said, slowly drawing the saber at his side. "I shall fight a warrior worthy of my stature."
Sten considered. Suddenly Diln was beside him, pressing a spear into his hand. She nodded—yes. You.
Sten hefted the spear, then dropped it, and, in one motion, lifted his willygun and fired twice.
The rounds caught the captain in the head, splattering his skull back across the twin view panels.
Sten turned away, holstering the gun. Nemli was looking shocked, and then his expression cleared. He smiled.
"Ah," he said gently. "For Acauzlay. You do understand our culture."
"Is it gonna lift, Ida?" Bet asked, slightly worried.
"Of course it is." the Rom woman snorted. "So we've got half the ship sealed against leaks, we're taking off with no landing gear, there's a bad fuel leak, and I haven't had a bath in a week."
"No problem for a lass like you," Alex agreed.
Her thunder somewhat stolen, Ida snorted and hit keys. Maneuver drive belched, hiccuped, snorted, and the Turnmaa's nose lifted.
"Now, as long as I can keep this computer from realizing what I'm doing..."
And she slammed both drive pots full forward.
Somehow both Yukawa drive units caught at once, and the Turnmaa clawed its way upward, searing the ground as the ship lifted for space.
Below it, only a handful of the Stralbo were watching. They'd buried their dead, held their feast, and life went on.
Diln, at the head of her phalanx, watched the Turnmaa flame upward and out of sight, silently thinking her own thoughts for many minutes after the last wisps of exhaust floated away and became indistinguishable from the clouds.
BOOK TWO
GARDE
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE MAN IN the river appeared to be in his mid-thirties. His long fishing rod was bent in an almost complete half-circle and the near-invisible line sang out from the reel almost to the growling rapids a few dozen meters upriver.
The man was muttering a steady stream of curses, half under his breath—curses and almost-prayers.