There is still law, Athaclena thought. The Gubru are constrained.

Like many other fanatic clans, the Gubru Alliance was not pristine in its adherence to the codes of planetary/ecological management. Knowing the avians’ dour paranoia, she had figured that they would program their defense robots one way if the rules were still valid, and quite another if they had fallen.

If chaos had completely taken over the Five Galaxies, the Gubru would have programmed their machines to sterilize hundreds of acres rather than allow any risk to their feathery frames.

But if the Codes held, then the enemy did not yet dare break them. For those same rules might protect them, if the tide of war turned against their faction.

Rule Nine Hundred and Twelve: Where possible, non-combatants must be spared. That held for noncombatant species, even more than individuals, especially on a catastrophe world such as Garth. Native forms were protected by billion-year-old tradition.

“You are trapped by your own assumptions, you vile things,” she murmured in Galactic Seven. Obviously the Gubru had programmed their machines to watch for the trappings of sapiency — factory-produced weapons, clothing, machinery — never imagining that an enemy might assail their camp naked, indistinguishable from the animals of the forest!

She smiled, thinking of Robert. This part had been his idea.

Gray, antelucan translucence was spreading across the sky, gradually driving out the fainter stars. To Athaclena’s left their medic, the elderly chimmie Elayne Soo, looked at her all-metal watch. She tapped its lens significantly. Athaclena nodded, giving permission for matters to proceed.

Dr. Soo cupped her mouth and uttered a high trilling sound, the call of a fyuallu bird. Athaclena did not hear the snapping twang of bowstrings as thirty crossbows fired. She tensed though. If the Gubru had invested in really sophisticated drones…

“Gotcha!” Benjamin exulted. “Six little tops, all broken to bits! The robots are all down!”

Athaclena breathed again. Robert was down there. Now, perhaps, she could believe that he and the others had a chance. She touched Benjamin’s shoulder, and the chim reluctantly handed over the binoculars.

Someone must have noticed when the monitor screens went blank. There was a faint hum, and the upper hatch of one of the hover tanks opened. A helmeted figure peered about the quiet meadow, its beak working in alarm as it saw the wreckage of a nearby watch robot. A sudden movement rustled the branches nearby. The soldier whirled about with its laser drawn as something or someone leaped forth from one of the neighboring trees. Blue lightning blazed at the dark figure.

It missed. The confused Gubru gunner couldn’t track a dim shape that neither flew nor fell but swung across the narrow clearing at the end of a long vine! Bright bolts went wide two more times, and then the soldier’s chance was gone.” There was a “crack” as the shadowy figure wrapped its legs around the slender avian and snapped its spine.

Athaclena’s triple pulse beat fast as she saw Robert’s silhouette stand on the turret of the tank, over the crumpled body of the Talon Soldier. He raised an arm to signal, and suddenly the clearing was filled with running forms.

Chims hurried among the tanks and floaters, carrying earthenware bottles. Behind them shambled larger figures bearing bulky packs. Athaclena heard Benjamin mutter to himself in suppressed resentment. It had been her choice to include gorillas in this operation, and the decision was not popular.

“… thirty-five… thirty-six …” Elayne Soo counted off the seconds. As the dawn light spread they could see chims clambering over the alien vehicles. This was gamble number three. Would surprise delay the inevitable reaction long enough?

Their luck ran out after thirty-eight seconds. Sirens shrieked, first from the lead tank and then from the one in the rear.

“Look out!” someone cried below.

The furry raiders scattered for the trees as Talon Soldiers tumbled out of their hover barges, firing searing blasts from their saber rifles. Chims fell screaming, batting at burning fur, or toppled silently into the undergrowth, holed from front to back. Athaclena clamped down on her corona in order not to faint under their agony.

This was her first taste of full-scale war. Right now there seemed to be no joke, only suffering and pointless, hideous death.

Then Talon Soldiers began falling. The avians hopped about seeking targets that had disappeared into the trees and were struck down by missiles as they stood. The fighters adjusted their weapons to seek out energy sources, but there were no lasers out there to home in on, no pulse-projectors, not even chemically powered pellet guns. Meanwhile crossbow bolts whizzed like stinging gnats. One by one, the Gubru warriors jerked and fell.

First one tank, then the other, began to rise on growling blasts of air. The lead vehicle turned. Its triple barrels then started blasting swaths through the forest.

The tops of towering trees seemed to hang in midair for brief moments as their centers exploded, before plummeting earthward in a haze of smoke and flying wood chips.’ Taut vines whipped back and forth like agonized snakes, spraying their hard-won liquors in all directions. Chims screamed as they spilled from shattered branches.

Is it worth it? Oh, can anything be worth this?

Athaclena’s corona had expanded in the emotion of the moment, and she felt a glyph start to take shape. Angrily she rejected the unformed sense image, an answer to her question. She wanted no laughing Tymbrimi poignancies now. She felt like weeping, human style, but did not know how.

The forest was afroth with fear, and native animals fled the devastation. Some ran right over Athaclena and Benjamin, squeaking in their panicked desperation to get away. The radius of slaughter spread as the deadly vehicles opened up on everything in sight. Explosions and flame were everywhere.

Then, as abruptly as it had started firing, the lead tank stopped! First one, then another barrel glowed reddish white and shut down. Half of the noise abated.

The other fighting machine seemed to be suffering similar problems, but that one tried to continue firing, in spite of its crackling, drooping barrels.

“Duck!” Benjamin cried out as he pulled Athaclena down. The crew on the hillside took cover just in time as the rear tank exploded in a searing, actinic flash. Pieces of metal and shape-plast armor whistled by overhead.

Athaclena blinked away the sharp afterimage. In a momentary confusion brought on by sensory overload, she wondered why Benjamin was so obsessed with Earthly waterfowl.

“The other one’s jammed!” Somebody shouted. Sure enough, by the time Athaclena was able to look again it was easy to see smoke rising from the lead tank’s apron. The turret emitted grinding noises, and it seemed unable to move. Mixed with the pungent odor of burning vegetation came the sharp smell of corrosion.

“It worked!” Elayne Soo exulted. Then she was over the top and gone, running to tend the wounded.

Benjamin and Robert had proposed using chemicals to disable a Gubru patrol. Athaclena then modified the plan to suit her own purposes. She did not want dead Gubru, as had been their policy so far. This time she wanted live ones.

There they were now, bottled up inside their vehicles, unable to move or act. Their communications antennae were melted, and anyway, by now the attacks in the Sind had surely begun. The Gubru High Command had worries enough closer to home. Help would be some time coming.

Silence held for a moment as debris rained to the forest floor. Dust slowly settled.

Then there was heard a growing chorus of high shrieks — shouts of glee unaltered since before Mankind began meddling with chimpanzee genes. Athaclena heard another sound, as well … a rolling, ululating cry of triumph — Robert’s “Tarzan” call.