They undoubtedly would have destroyed K'Vaern's Cove and the ancient city of Diaspra, as well, but for the arrival of Roger's forces. The Marines' core of surviving high-tech gear and their thousands of years of military experience and "imported" technology—pike formations, at first, and then rifles, muskets, artillery, and even black powder bombardment rockets—had managed to hold together an alliance against the Boman and break them in the heart of their newly conquered citadel of Sindi.
The entire occupied area had been recovered, with the Boman forces scattered after hideous casualties and either forced to resettle under local leadership or driven back across the northern borders. Even the Vasin castles, what was left of them, had been retaken. The last Boman remnants had been driven out as soon as the humans took the spaceport and, reassured that there were no Saints around, could use their combat shuttles and heavy weapons against the barbarians.
Honal and Rastar could have returned to their homes. But one look at the ruined fortifications, the homes they'd grown up in and in which their parents, families, and friends had died, was enough. They'd returned to the spaceport with Roger and turned their backs upon the past. The Vasin—not only the force Honal and Rastar had led out of the ruins of Therdan to cover the evacuation of the only women and children to survive the city's fall, but all that had been gathered from all of their scattered people's cities—were now surrogates of Prince Roger MacClintock, heir apparent to the Throne of Man. Most of the survivors remained on Marduk, relocated to new homes near Voitan and provided with locally produced Imperial technology to ensure their survival and well being. But Rastar's personal troops were committed to the personal service of the human who had made their survival as a people possible. Where Roger went, they went. Which currently meant to another planet.
Honal had to admit that if it weren't for the circumstances which made leaving possible—his entire family was dead, as well as Rastar's—he would have felt only pleased anticipation at the prospect of following Roger. He'd always had a bit of the wanderlust, probably inherited from his nomadic forefathers, not to mention his Boman tribute-bride mother. And the chance to see another planet was one very few Mardukans had been given.
On the other hand, it meant getting the civan settled aboard a starship. It had been bad enough on those cockleshell boats they'd used to cross the Western Ocean, but starships were even worse, in a way.
For one thing, there was that constant background thrum. He was told it was from the fusion plants—whatever they were—that fed power to the ship, and that they'd been charging the "capacitors" for the "tunnel drive" (more odd words) for the last two days. And the gravity was different from Marduk's. It was lighter, if anything, which allowed for some interesting new variations on combat training. And, like most of the Mardukans, Honal had developed a positive passion for the game of "basketball." The humans, on the other hand, had insisted that the Mardukans had to use baskets which were mounted at two and a half times regulation height the instant they saw the Mardukan players soaring effortlessly through two-meter jump shots in the reduced gravity. But if the Mardukans enjoyed the lighter gravity, the civan didn't like it—not at all, at all. And they were taking out their dislike on their grooms and riders.
Honal looked around the big hold at the other riders settling the civan in their stalls. Those stalls had been custom-made by the "Class One Manufacturing Plant" which had been shipped from the spaceport to Voitan. They were large enough for the civan to pace around in, or lie down to sleep, and strongly made from something called "composite fibers." And there were attachment points on the floor—the deck—of the hold, to which the structures had been carefully secured.
The stalls were also roofed, and much of the material the civan were going to be eating on the voyage was stuffed into the vast area above them. Huge containers of barleyrice and beans had been hoisted into the area and stacked in tiers. There was water on tap in several spots, and arrangements had been made to dispose of the civan's waste. He'd been told that human ships occasionally had to move live cargo, and from the looks of things, they'd figured out how to do it with the normal infernal human ingenuity.
An open area on the inner side of the hold had been fenced off to provide space in which they could work the civan. It was big enough for only a few of the beasts to be exercised or trained at once, but it was better than they'd managed on the ships of the Crossing, where the only exercise choice had been to let them swim alongside the ships for short periods. Still, with only one working area available, the grooms and riders were going to be working around the clock to keep themin decent shape.
The clock. That was another thing that took getting used to. The Terran day, which the ship maintained, was only two-thirds as long as Marduk's day. So just about the time it felt like early afternoon, the ship lights dimmed to "nighttime" mode. He'd already noticed the way it affected his own sleep, and he was worried about how the civan would react.
Well, they'd make it, or they wouldn't. He loved civan, but he'd come to the conclusion that there were even more marvelous transportation options waiting beyond Marduk's eternal overcast. He'd lusted after the humans' shuttles from the instant he'd seen them in flight, and he'd been told about, and seen pictures of, the "light-flyers" and the "stingships" available on Old Earth. He wondered just how much they cost... and what he was going to be earning as a senior aide to the Prince. A lot, he hoped, because assuming they survived for him to collect his pay, he was bound and determined to get himself a light-flyer.
"How's it going?" a voice asked, and he looked up as Rastar appeared at his shoulder.
"Not bad," Honal replied, raising a warning hand to the civan as he sensed the lips drawing back from its fangs and its crest folding down. "About as well as can be expected, in fact."
"Good." Rastar nodded, a human gesture he'd picked up. "Good. They think they'll finish loading in a few hours. Then we'll find out if the engines really work."
"Won't that be fun?" Honal said dryly.
"Engaging phase drive—" Amanda Beach drew a deep breath and pressed a button "—now."
At first, the image of the planet below seemed unchanged on the bridge viewscreens. It was just the same slowly circling, blue-and-white ball it had always been. But then the ship began to accelerate, and the ball began to dwindle.
"All systems nominal," one of her few surviving engineering techs said. "Acel is about twenty percent below max, but that's right on the numbers, given our counter-grav field status. Runs one, four, and nine are still out. And charge rate on the tunnel capacitors is still nominal. Nine hours to full tunnel drive power."
"And eleven hours to the Tsukayama Limit," Beach said, with a sigh. "Looks like it's holding. We'll find out when we try to form a singularity."
"Eleven hours?" Roger asked. He'd been standing by in the control room. Not because he felt he could do anything, but because he thought his place was here, at this time.
"Yeah," Beach said. "If everything holds together."