All right… the tank coming into view around the curve was a Condor, with a full-scale Star Colonel—through the telescopic sight she could make out his rank insignia—standing up in the opened top hatch. She tracked him in her sights, a kilometer and a half away, moving at thirty kilometers an hour. If she’d chosen to use one of the Gauss rifles, she’d have had to lead him a bit, so that he and the projectile would arrive at the same point at the same time. With a laser, she didn’t need to, and from this point of vantage, on a clear day like today, she didn’t need to worry about leaves or fog interfering with the laser’s deadly light. Life, she thought, was all about choices, and this one was going to ruin the Star Colonel’s day for him.
“Turn again, turn again, turn again I pray ye…”
She took a breath, let half of it out, held what remained. Her finger tightened on the trigger. The laser’s beam flashed out like a reddened spear.
“For if ye burn Auchidoon, Huntley he will slay ye.”
The Star Colonel twisted and slid down in the hatch of his tank, half of his head burnt away. Lexa closed her eyes, then looked through the sights again. Another vehicle was rounding the bend. The first tank had slowed and turned off the road.
Time to move to another location.
Lexa rolled away from the edge of the cliff, careful not to skyline herself. As soon as she was out of sight from the road, she rose and moved rapidly away. She was still humming.
“As I came in by Fiddich side, on a May morning, Auchidoon was in a blaze, an hour before the dawning.”
In her field headquarters at Tara DropPort, Anastasia Kerensky watched the real-time display on the big tri-vid as her troops drove up the road toward Castle Northwind. With the Highlanders now in full retreat out of the city and scattering into the mountains, she had been able to detach a special armored column and give them specific orders: fulfill her angry promise to Tara Campbell by seizing Castle Northwind and claiming it for the Steel Wolves as spoils of war.
Now, in the first light of early morning, the column had reached the cut leading up to the castle. Their progress was relayed back to those watching at headquarters by a camera in the third tank back from the head of the column—progress that in the past few minutes had slowed to a crawl.
“What is the reason for the delay?” Anastasia demanded. “And where is Star Colonel Ulan?”
The face on the video terminal replied, “The Star Colonel is dead, Galaxy Commander.”
“What happened?”
“We have been taking sporadic sniper fire, Galaxy Commander.”
“Has there been any serious resistance, outside of the sniper fire?”
“None.”
“Then carry on.”
The Warrior saluted, and shortly afterward the column began moving again. The picture in the headquarters display was impressive, even through the flat pickup from a single camera. The castle lay before them, cradled in its glacial valley, its gray bulk touched with a pink glow from the sun rising beyond the mountain peaks. Tendrils of fog rose from the lake at the castle’s foot, and the banners of Northwind and The Republic snapped crisply from the upper towers.
The camera shook as the main gun on the Condor fired.
“Resistance remains light, Galaxy Commander,”
“Good. I want you to capture that castle. In whole. Intact. I have plans for it.”
“Galaxy Commander, it shall be done.”
No sooner had he spoken than lights twinkled along the side of the northern mountain, among the shadows of the conifers below the timberline. A moment later, geysers of earth rose among the troops and tanks of the advancing Wolves. A volley of short– and medium-range missiles from the armor column’s missile carriers replied, departing in a roar like a high wind. A moment later, red fireballs blossomed in the darkness under the trees. “As I said, resistance is—”
The man twitched and fell, blood running from his mouth. For a moment the camera pointed at the ground. Then someone picked it up, and a new man stood in front of the camera.
“Galaxy Commander, this is Star Captain Dane. Star Captain Jothan is now commanding. He asked me to take over this duty. We are about to assault the castle.”
Behind Star Captain Dane in the video display, Anastasia could see the scurry of troops heading to the main gate, running in open formation across the field. From either side, over the walls, jump-armored Clan Warriors launched themselves in perfect ballistic trajectories. By the time the running troopers in front had reached the gate, it had been opened for them from within.
“Courtyard, open, light resistance,” another voice said, this time with no video accompanying the audio feed. The camera stayed fixed on the castle’s exterior, its telephoto lens bringing the far-distant action close to the cameraman’s point of view. “Stairway right and left. First squad left, third right. Second squad taking covering position by the door. Moving up reserves, specialists forward. Locked door second level. Setting breaching charges.”
The sound of a leaden thud came from the remote audio pickup. An instant later, the same sound came from the microphone held in the field by Star Captain Dane. “Door breached”—the sounds of automatic weapons fire—“room secured. Resistance light. Moving in.”
They cleared the castle, room by room. The camera fixed on the castle exterior still showed the banners flying on the parapets. One by one the flags of Northwind came down, and were replaced with the banners of the Steel Wolves.
“Entering final tower,” came the audio-pickup voice. “Stairway clear.”
An explosion. A different voice continued. “Medics up! Stairway now clear. Continuing up. Door. Door is—unlocked. Entering top chamber.”
From the field, one Northwind Highland banner remained, atop a lofty tower, far back in the center of the castle.
“Appears to be a bedchamber. No one present. Here now, what’s this?”
The voice inside the castle sounded curious, bemused.
The camera outside showed a light blossoming in that topmost room. The windows filled with light, and the walls expanded. Smoke wreathed the turrets. A noise like thunder, or like surf pounding against cliffs, swept over the field. Smoke, dark and thick, shot through with yellow flames, sprouted where the castle stood. For a moment a castle of fire and light, with walls of smoke, stood against the mist and the mountains. Then it collapsed, with a noise so loud that the microphone could not record it, and in dead silence Castle Northwind vanished.
The camera whipped around, back the way the Steel Wolves had come. From the mouth of the steep valley, between two cliffs, smoke and flame and rock dust were pouring as the mountains on either side were moved together in crumbling avalanches. The camera went back to Star Captain Dane. Blood ran from his nose and ears, a mark of the explosion’s concussive force. He moved his mouth, but no sound came out.
Anastasia could read his lips, though: “We’re trapped.”
She turned away.
“Send troops out into the city,” she said. “Have them set fire to everything that can burn. Then all forces gather at the DropPort. Let the Countess of Northwind keep the ruins, if she would sooner turn everything she loves into rubble, rather than have it fall into my hands. We are leaving this cursed planet and taking ship for Terra.
“We are the Warriors that Nicholas Kerensky made for this purpose, and we are going home.”