Firestorm

CHAPTER 9

Ceylon

“B oy, this is one hell of a cruddy Christmas!” Greg Garrett grumbled to himself.

“What?” shouted Pruit Barry, about ten feet away, trying to make himself heard over the roar of heavy guns, the crash of a brisk surf, and the warbling shriek of maybe two thousand charg-ing Grik.

“I said, I think it’s Christmas!” Garrett yelled back.

“Oh. Wow.”

Flocks of crossbow bolts sheeted over the breastworks and an occasional roundshot geysered damp sand high in the air. Ravaged Donaghey, though working hard against the beach under the assault of a heavy sea running at high tide, pounded the attackers racing down the narrow peninsula, scything great swaths in the tightly packed mob. Lieutenant Bekiaa-Sab-At, her white leather armor dingy with mud and stained black with blood, stood. “Muskets, archers, present!” she roared. Slightly fewer than seven hundred sailors and Marines prepared. Most of the Marine muskets had gone to sailors, since they were easier to learn than the powerful longbows, and the Marines already knew how to use those. “Mark your targets!” Bekiaa warned. This wouldn’t be a massed volley; those relied as much on psychological impact as anything else, and here, in previous assaults, they hadn’t been getting their money’s worth for the first time. They were starting to run dangerously low on ammunition, particularly musket balls, and it was better to make each one count. Their arrows were holding out rather better. Details raced out between assaults, braving the frighteningly improved enemy artillery, and retrieved as many arrows from sand and corpse as they could. At least the “Grik fire” bombs hadn’t been an issue. They couldn’t maneuver the heavy, catapult-like weapons within their shorter range-not that they didn’t try at first. Smaller, shorter-ranged versions of the things, carried by packs of troops, made tempting targets and were never allowed close enough to deploy and launch.

“Commence firing!” Bekiaa screeched.

A hundred and fifty-odd Baalkpan Armory “Springfields” rattled independently, the dull slapp of heavy balls striking flesh distinct and gratifying. Arrows thwanged and whooshed over the breastworks, the impacts less dramatic, but the resultant wails of agony just as real. Six of Tolson ’s eighteen-pounders, so laboriously retrieved and emplaced, shook the earth and vomited fire, choking smoke, and almost two thousand three-quarter-inch copper balls. The big guns were the primary killers. Firing into the dense, narrow press, they could not possibly miss, and each ball not absorbed by the sand often accounted for multiple Grik. A great, collective moan reached the defenders through the smoke, bu only about five hundred of the enemy did.

“Shields!” Bekiaa cried.

Shields came up, many hastily built from Tolson ’s now-shattered corpse, and the remaining Grik slammed into them with unabated ferocity. Though outnumbered now, they still might have broken the line if they’d had the sense to concentrate their blow against a single point. As it was, they simply charged straight at whatever opposed them in whatever direction they were pointed when visibility returned. Bayonets and polished barrels flashed under the relentless sun, and spear- men advanced behind the shields and the grisly, personal slaughter began.

Greg and Pruit stayed out of it. Both held. 45s in their hands, and Barry had an ’03 Springfield slung on his shoulder. Somewhere on the left, where the sandy spit bordered the river mouth, Russ was supposed to be doing the same; commanding his “section” of the line, but leaving the fighting to his sailors-bolstered by Marines with the proper training for it. Bekiaa had the center, seconded by Graana-Fas, and Greg determined to have a word with her regarding her “proper” place as well. Slowly, the killing subsided, and another hoarse, thirsty cheer began to build, punctuated by the squeals of the last Grik to be slain.

“Stay here, won’t you, Pruit? I need to have a word with our intrepid young Marine commander,” Greg said.

“Sure,” said Barry. “Somebody better, or we won’t have her much longer.” The Grik artillery resumed, a shot skating through the sand nearby. “Keep your head down! Their guns aren’t very big, and we drive ’em off every time they try to deploy in front of us, but they’ve got a lot of ’em, and they’re getting better with ’em too.”

“You bet,” Garrett replied, crouching lower in the trench behind the works and cinching his helmet tighter. He took off at a trot, his right arm extended so he could pat each defender as he passed, saying, “Good job! Good job! We’ll lick ’em yet!” Most glanced back, blinking thanks or encouragement of their own, but he came across far too many who couldn’t hear him anymore.

Short of Bekiaa’s position he found Jamie Miller, Walker ’s young pharmacist’s mate on another world, and now an able surgeon in his own right. He was working on a Lemurian sailor, one of Tolson ’s, by the name stitched on the Dixie cup lying nearby in the watery bottom of the trench. Two of Miller’s assistants held the ’Cat down while the kid tried to stop the bleeding from a bad neck wound. Greg could tell it was hopeless.

“When are we going to get some help here?” Miller seethed when the bleeding stopped on its own.

Greg squatted beside him. “I wish I knew, Jamie. The fleet’s coming as fast as it can. The last position we got would still put them about two days out.” He paused. “You know Clancy’s dead, right?”

Jamie nodded. The night before, three Grik ships approached under cover of darkness and attacked Donaghey from the sea. It shouldn’t have, but it came as a complete surprise. Only the enemy’s crummy gunnery saved the stranded ship, and her seaward guns, once alerted, cut them apart. One Grik ship sank, another beached a couple miles to the east, and the third drifted ashore, afire from stem to stern. Even now, her blackened bones were breaking up in the surf. But Donaghey was badly mauled herself. One early, lucky shot, crashed through her comm shack and killed the young radioman while he was sending the evening report. Another of their dwindling “original” destroyermen was lost.

“Yeah, well, he ain’t the only one,” Jamie snapped. “Counting ‘walking wounded’ still fighting, our casualties are past twenty percent. Not as many from that last attack,” he allowed, “since our protection’s improved, but sooner or later the Grik are going to get their act together.”

Greg nodded. He had plenty of “combat” experience now, but this was only his second “shore action.” Already he could tell it was a lot different from his last. These Grik were better fed and far more motivated. Even so, he got the distinct impression they were just “locals,” thrown at them because they were closest-militia, basically. If anything, the first “attacks,” while violent and costly, had been even more disorganized and, well, amateurish, than anything he’d heard of before. If they’d thrown better troops at him then, it would probably be all over by now. In the meantime, the Allied defenses had been strengthened considerably.

Notwithstanding the naval attack, however, the quality of Grik field artillery had improved disproportionately with their infantry, even though Greg’s heavy guns kept it at arm’s length on the “mainland” beyond the broader area where the peninsula touched. He reasoned that artillery was probably beyond the grasp of your everyday Grik, and there must have been a “regular” battery stationed nearby. It had probably taken a day or two for the “Grik brass” to figure out what was going on down here, and he expected better troops, with possibly different tactics at any time.

“We’ll be fine,” Garrett said. “You’re doing fine. Keep up the good work. I need to talk to Lieutenant Bekiaa.” With an encouraging smile, he hurried on.

Bekiaa-Sab-At was drinking water from a bottle offered by Marine Lieutenant Graana-Fas. Graana (nobody dared call him “Granny” to his face) was one of Greg’s own Marines from Donaghey, and he’d somehow managed to participate in nearly every Allied action against the Grik. He was second to Bekiaa here out of choice, and Greg wasn’t sure why. Bekiaa had seen some sharp fighting with the creepy-and ultimately strangely benign-“toad lizards” north of Tjilatjap, but until now, that was about it. Maybe Graana saw something in her, as Greg admittedly did. She was certainly fearless.

“Cap-i-taan Garrett!” she said, handing the bottle back and saluting.

“Quit that!” Greg said with a smile. “You want some Grik gunner to see, and knock my head off with a cannon ball?”

Bekiaa chuckled. “No, Cap-i-taan.”

“Good. And while we’re on that subject, you need to stop hopping around on top of the breastworks and wearing a target for every Grik crossbowman that says, ‘Shoot me, I’m important!’ Is that perfectly clear?”

“But…”

“I have tried to tell her,” Graana confided. “I asked if she thinks I would have lasted this long, making such a spectacle of myself.”

“But you do!” Bekiaa accused.

“I do not. I lead in a press, in a charge, but never single myself out for the enemy’s sole attention!”

“Well… but perhaps if I do that, I distract him from another? Maybe many others.”

“Ah, but who will lead them if you are slain?”

“You.”

“Yes,” Graana said, accepting the compliment, “but what of tomorrow? Next week? Next year? If we spend our good commanders a battle at a time, who will lead those future Marines, not yet even under arms, in future battles?”

“Others will rise.”

“Yes, but they’ll start at the beginning, all over again, without the benefit of what you might teach. They’ll be doomed to make the same mistakes you and I already recognize as such!” Bekiaa had no response to that.

“Listen to him,” Greg said. “That’s an order. If you’re going to lead the center, you’re going to take care of yourself. We can’t spare you; either of you.”

“Ay, ay, Cap-i-taan Garrett,” Bekiaa agreed. Suddenly a runner, one of Revenge ’s machinist’s mates, rushed to join them.

“Cap-i-taan Garrett!” he gasped, “Cap-i-taan Chaa-pelle’s comp-iments, an’ would you peese joining him on de lef? The Griks is up to some-ting dere!”

Greg nodded and followed the runner through the zigzag of ditches, finally reaching the extreme left where Chapelle peered over some of his lost ship’s timbers at the broad mouth of the river and the land beyond.

“Hi, Greg,” he said, gesturing over the embedded planks. “What do you make of that?”

Garrett raised his binoculars. The morning haze, thick with lingering gun smoke, lay heavy on the calm water in the lee of the peninsula, making it difficult to penetrate to the dense foliage on the other side, maybe half a mile. It looked like large numbers of low, dark shapes were assembling along the distant shore, however.

“Huh. Looks like they may try to cross. Those must be barges.” He rubbed his nose; the dust and grit got into everything, and he felt a sneeze coming on. He shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense. They have to know we see them. Why let us do that? If they’ve got the sense to try a flank attack, you’d think they’d have the sense to hide it.”

“Maybe they meant it to come last night or early this morning, and just didn’t get enough grease on the wheel.”

“Maybe. We’ll see.” Garrett looked to his new left, where the network of trenches extended farther, parallel with this calmer beach. Four of Tolson ’s guns were spaced along it, for just such a possibility. “Be ready to secure this flank. Send somebody good to the other end, but stay here yourself. This might become the center when they try again.” He glanced back up the spit of land to the east, then back across the river. “I wonder what they’re up to,” he muttered to himself.

“I wonder what they’ll do now,” General Niwa pondered aloud.

“Indeed,” agreed General Halik. He hissed disgust. “Your instincts were right. You should have come down days ago. Your authority could have prevented this disaster. Never have I seen so many destroyed by so few.”

“We didn’t know,” Niwa interjected.

“We should have. The possibility was there, and you saw it more clearly than I,” Halik snorted. “Still I remain but a sport fighter, a ‘tactical warrior.’ That must change.”

“If you’ll forgive me, you already grasp more than General Esshk ever did.”

“No doubt General Esshk would agree, but when thought replaces-what is that word? Valor! When thought becomes more important than the valor of the hunter, I fear few of my kind are fully prepared for the consequences.”

“That’s what we’re here to change,” Niwa reminded. They’d both arrived the previous day, prodded by reports of contact and battle that grew steadily more reliable and frankly, appalling. Lost was any opportunity to capture prisoners, due to the unexpected number of the enemy, and the futile, unordered attacks by local warriors that encouraged the enemy to construct ever-stronger fortifications. Halik had ordered the naval attack upon hearing one of the enemy ships was still in the fight, but it didn’t have the weight to succeed-he saw that now-and he’d revised his plan accordingly. The flank attack was Niwa’s idea, but Halik quickly grasped the advantage. Unfortunately, few others had, nor had they understood the necessity that it be coordinated with the last frontal attack. Now the enemy doubtless saw the barges and knew what was coming. Another coordinated attempt might be made because the enemy had to shield the riverfront approach now. The flank attack, combined with another frontal assault bolstered by Niwa’s guards and better troops, might find a weakened defense, but it would be costly.

“Perhaps after dark, tonight,” Niwa ventured.

Halik shook his head. “We’ll never keep the troops focused that long. Few yet understand the idea of defense-that remains one reason attacks upon defensive works are so costly. No, when our new troops join the ravaged remnants to their front, we must strike immediately and carry as many of these locals along as possible when our own make their thrust. They should punch through somewhere.”

“They should, but such an attack in broad daylight, without even the river fog as a shield?”

“Many will die,” Halik agreed, “but that can no longer be helped. Perhaps this ‘practice’ will ensure better performance when we meet the enemy’s main attack, wherever it falls.”

“If we have anything left to meet it,” Niwa grumbled.

Halik gargled a laugh. “Whatever we lose will be but a tithe against our reserves… and those who survive may learn a lesson. You estimate the enemy numbers at six or seven hundreds, not counting those aboard the ship. I agree. The next attack will go forward with nearly ten times that number, from three directions. They may counter each thrust; in fact, I hope they do, because it will weaken them, not us. They cannot be strong everywhere. But the timing is critical. Losses will be extreme,” Halik acknowledged, “but sometimes, knowledge must be gained with blood. Once gained, perhaps it won’t be forgotten!”

“I hope not,” Niwa said. “You say we spend but a tithe, but that ‘tithe’ is likely to be shattered. Are a few thoughtful survivors worth that cost?”

“Yes.”

Niwa shrugged. “Then go ahead. If you’ve no objection, I’ll watch the waterborne assault. I’m curious how effective it will be.”

“Very well, but observe only. Do not get swept along. We must not lose you, and I might find myself craving your counsel.”

Niwa saluted in the Japanese way and with a bow went to join a column of Grik squirming through the coastal jungle, toward the barges.

Only Donaghey ’s mizzen remained standing, its top crowded with lookouts. A series of signals from there informed Garrett of a number of disconcerting things at once; three more Grik ships were in the offing, a major concentration of Grik was massing just beyond his view to the east, and the barges they’d be told to watch had begun streaming across the river mouth.

“Well. It looks like they’ve finally got all their shit in the sock at once, this time,” he said grimly, using one of General Alden’s favorite terms. It was early afternoon, and he’d just returned to Bekiaa’s position in the center. “Runner!” he shouted. “Get over here! Listen,” he continued when he had the young Lemurian’s attention. “Go to Captain Chapelle. Tell him it’s about to get messy. He’s to send what he can to support the guns on the north coast, but only as much as he thinks he has to, got it? The gunners’ll have to chew those barges up. I think that’s mostly a distraction from a really heavy hit on our front! We got ships coming in again too. They’re hitting us everywhere at once. Got all that?”

“Ay, ay, Cap-i-taan Gaar-rett! Ships, barges, an’ swarms o’ Griks! Support North baa-tery, but only as needed.”

“You got it. Now scram!”

The Grik artillery had been desultory since morning, just a few rounds an hour to harass them. Suddenly, it opened up with a renewed frenzy and frequency that outpaced anything they’d experienced yet. More guns must have arrived, and some were big ones. The distant jungle fairly erupted with smoke, and incoming roundshot competed against the surf with its similar, more insistent sound.

“Take cover!” Garrett yelled, and dropped to the bottom of the trench, pulling his helmet tight. The damp sand convulsed and shuddered, and the air was full of descending clouds of grit. “All guns but those positioned directly to the front, commence counter battery fire!” he yelled, hearing the command passed along. “Those to the front, load case shot and hold!”

Even in the trench, he felt the crack of one of Tolson ’s long guns, and heard the squeal of the truck as the gun recoiled back on the wooden deck they’d built in the sand. Moments after the shoosh of the shot was lost in the distance amid the increasing tempo of thunder, he thought he heard the distant clap of the exploding shell raining fragments on the enemy gunners. He crawled to the top of the trench, squeezing past a pair of sailors with muskets, and peered over the breastworks. White puffs nearly a thousand yards away sprayed blackened shards, some large enough to see from here, through the trembling treetops overhanging the unseen enemy guns. The six cannon on this line were joined by Donaghey ’s, even as she prepared to defend against the approaching Grik ships on her opposite beam. At some point, they’d lose her support. She didn’t have enough crew to serve both sides at once. A staccato booming came from the far left, as the guns guarding the river approach opened on the barges full of Grik.

“I wish we’d gotten more guns out of Tolson,” he murmured. They were lucky to have the nine they had. The frigate had held out as long as she could, but finally rolled onto her beam ends, submerging more than half her armament. Several ’Cats were killed when that happened. All that remained was to begin the task of breaking her up and floating timbers ashore. Once begun, the sea accelerated their task, and a constant stream of debris, more than enough for their needs, washed onto the beach. Of the noble Tolson, all that remained in view was a shattered skeleton in the surf.

“They’re coming, Skipper,” said Saaran-Gaani, squeezing in beside him, his dark amber eyes wide with excitement. Greg’s exec from Donaghey had found him. Smitty was directing the guns on the stranded ship and Saaran no longer had a purpose aboard. He’d asked permission to join the fight ashore. Greg looked east and saw a malignantmass of Grik forming in the distance across the dazzling white sand and the sea of dark corpses.

“Do you have a weapon, Saaran?” The brown and white ’Cat blinked affirmative, and patted his sword. Garrett sighed. “No!” He looked around. “Lieutenant Bekiaa!”

“Sir?”

“Any muskets lying around, from the wounded and dead?”

“No, sir. Sailors buy it, Marines take ’em back.”

“The ‘Sailing Master’ needs a spear, then. Like you, I’d rather he didn’t get within arm’s length of those bastards!”

“Can you use a musket, sir?” Bekiaa asked Saaran Gaani. He nodded. Like everyone, he’d familiarized himself with the new weapons and fired a few shots. They didn’t use longbows on the Great South Island, and he’d be useless with one. “Will you kill Grik?”

“Until they kill me,” he replied matter-of-factly. Bekiaa blinked approval.

“Take mine,” she said, and tossed it to him, followed by her cartridge box.

“But… what will you use?”

“Cap-i-taan Garrett has instructed me to stay back from the fighting. If I need another, one will be available.” She grinned, her tail swaying almost flirtatiously. “I hope that one will not return to me until after the fight!”

“Dern it, Bekiaa,” Greg said, flustered, “I told you to quit risking yourself worse than a private soldier, and now you’re making a pass at a recruit!”

“He’s an officer! There is nothing improper.”

“Nothing improper…!” Greg closed his eyes in the face of the onrushing horde. He should probably get back to the right and rejoin Pruit; it was just a hundred yards or so, but Captain Barry would do fine. He was closest to the covering fire of the ship, and the Grik had been veering north of there as they neared the line. He might as well ride it out here. “You just concentrate on killing Grik,” he told Saaran, taking his own advice and sliding back from the breastworks. “Don’t get all aflutter.”

Saaran glanced back. “A most… fascinating female,” he remarked.

“Sure.” Greg moved to join Bekiaa. The enemy artillery began to lift, even while Tolson ’s old guns redoubled their fire. Explosive case shot would soon become canister again. “It’s very improper to leave poor defenseless male-sailors!-thinking about weird, predatory Marine broads right in the middle of a battle,” he said formally.

“All I said…”

“It’s never what gals say that gets a guy killed. It’s what they think she said… or did.” He looked appealingly at Lieutenant Graana-Fas. “Is she like this all the time?”

“I don’t know, sir. We’re from different ships.” He lowered his voice. “Perhaps she… offsets… or compensates? Replaces one risky behavior with another? Don’t ask me; I was a carpenter at Baalkpan. Before this war, there were no ‘Marines’ here. How is it where you are from?”

“Well… since there aren’t any female line officers of any kind, battlefield romance is sort of rare.”

The banter was a tonic, helping them keep their minds off what was coming. Judging by what little Greg could see from his prspective, it was going to be bad; by far the strongest push yet. As the hissing roar and weapon-on-shield rumble of the charging wave of Grik built to overwhelm the guns, Garrett took a sip from his “grogged” canteen and passed it to Graana-Fas and Bekiaa. He fiddled nervously with the pattern of 1917 cutlass hanging from his belt, expecting for the first time that he might have to actually use the damn thing. He’d practiced some, with the Marines. Everyone had to. But he’d never pulled it in combat before except to wave it around. Unlike a few of the weapons (most notably Silva’s and the Bosun’s) that had reached this world in an unopened crate aboard Walker, Garrett’s cutlass looked brand-new. The oiled wooden grip had a few little dings from carrying it around, but the black oxide finish on the guard and blade was practically unmarred. His fingers almost seemed to heat, touching the thing, and after he retrieved his canteen, he opened the flap of his holster and drew the 1911 Colt.

He looked south, at Donaghey ’s standing mizzen, trying to read the signal flags. Only the lookouts there would have a real idea of what they faced. His blood ran chill when he saw the message that essentially said, “Enemy too many to count.” So. This is it, he thought. The mast trembled and a gout of smoke billowed from Donaghey ’s seaward side while a few guns tried to keep firing at the mass descending like an avalanche on the breastworks. No one spoke now; the banter was over. Nervous ’Cats tugged at their armor and a few veterans windmilled their arms to ensure their range of motion. Muskets were already loaded and held at the ready, and Marine archer/spearmen cast nervous glances at their NCOs waiting for their own order to prepare. More spearmen arrived from the right to bolster the line, and Greg realized Barry must have seen that the center was going to take a pounding.

He hefted the Colt. Unlike the cutlass, the pistol fit his hand like a glove. Its black-blue oxide finish had evolved into a general bright gray appearance but there was no rust. The checkered walnut grips were warm with memories of other walnut things he’d known from another world, and he wondered if there were any walnut trees here. His eyes and thoughts lingered on the UNITED STATES PROPERTY stamped under the slide on the left side of the frame, and he reeled with a sense of unreality such as he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. I’m a kid from Tennessee who’s about to die on the other side of a different world! Suddenly, he realized how Captain Reddy must have felt at the Battle of Aryaal, with all the Grik in the world swarming down on him. Greg had seen it from the ship. He’d known the captain was dead… but he wasn’t. He didn’t give up and he didn’t die.

With growing determination, Greg pulled the slide back on the Colt and released it, letting it chamber a round. Calmly, he pushed the magazine release button and caught the two-tone device. Fishing in his pocket, he thumbed a copper-nosed cartridge in on top of the others, then shoved the magazine back into the well until it latched.

“About two hundred yards, Skipper,” Saaran-Gaani shouted, barely audibly.

“Very well,” Garrett replied. “Let’s go to canister,” he recommended. “Lieutenant Bekiaa, commence firing at your discretion.”

General Halik had never seen anything like it. He was accustomed to small-scale combat, one-on-one, in the sport-fighting arena. Even before, when he’d been part of larger actions against other Grik, “his” battles had been narrowly viewed from his own perspective without thought for the larger issue. Now he watched from a distance, not so different from those who once is fights so many times in the past, but he’d designed this attack, he and Niwa, based on fundamental principles he’d learned in the arena. Feint, slash, parry; the unexpected blow from the side, the demonstration to gain an opponent’s attention while preparing a blow from a neglected quarter-all were appropriate here, writ large, and yet…

“The enemy fights well,” he admitted grudgingly. “They react much quicker, I think, than we would in similar circumstances.” The “amphibious” attack across the river mouth was disintegrating, each barge full of Grik savaged in turn, with no opportunity to reply, by typhoons of small projectiles-“canister and grape,” fired by those three heavy guns. The heavier thrust at the center had been decimated as well, by canister, arrows, and musket fire, but at least it could respond, and it hit the enemy defenses with an awesome crash clearly audible over the other thunders of battle. He saw nothing of the attack from the sea, but the back mast on the stranded ship had fallen.

“They’re all ‘Hij,’ General Halik,” said Niwa. He’d rejoined the Grik leader after watching the waterborne assault depart. The confusion and chaos he’d witnessed, even among their “better” troops, appalled him. “That’s something even First General Esshk has difficulty comprehending. The lowliest warrior in their ranks can recognize the ebbs and flows of battle, or call attention to perceived threats. Of course they react more quickly.” He paused. “The barges are a waste of Uul. If that attack had begun in darkness, it would have fared better.”

“Probably, but it still serves a purpose. It is the blunted jab that holds a portion of the opponent’s attention. When he is forced to forget it by the battering sword, it might yet become the fatal thrust.” He snorted apologetically. “I am new at this. I have never even faced this enemy before.” He hissed a sigh. “I do not expect the ‘prisoners’ we’d hoped for, but I am learning from them.”

“Remember, these are castaways, stranded warriors with no support,” Niwa warned. “The larger force will be more difficult.”

“I understand, but still I learn how the enemy thinks and fights. I see for myself the value of prepared defenses, these ‘breastworks’! Once our armies learn to use such things, at need, do you believe they could be dislodged?”

“No,” Niwa said.

The tumult of battle reached a crescendo, and the enemy line began to falter in the center.

“Look! Oh, look, General Niwa!” Halik cried. “We have broken through!” He looked at Niwa. “Let us send a company of our ‘special troops’ to join this exercise!”

Greg Garrett inserted his last magazine and racked the slide. Grik were in the trench behind the breastworks! The line had been holding well enough and with his limited view, he’d begun to feel a sense of optimism. Then, with a suddenness that left his thoughts reeling, the shield wall at the barricade simply disintegrated under the unexpected weight of a solid block of Grik reinforcements. He saw Graana-Fas thrust upward with a spear from the bottom of the trench, impaling a squalling Grik, and sling it among the wavering troops behind him. While he was thus occupied, more enemies leaped down upon him, and he fell beneath their hacking swords and gnashing teeth and claws. Greg fired at them, but one shot was spoiled when Bekiaa, covered in blood, dragged him out of the trench to the rear, where another shield wall was trying to form.

“Where’s Saaran?” he yeled, but Bekiaa didn’t respond. Grik were milling in the trench below, their wickedly barbed crossbow bolts flying past in thrumming sheets. Garrett fired down into the momentarily stalled Grik, joining a volley of muskets and arrows that piled them deep in the damp sand. His slide locked back.

“Here!” Bekiaa screeched, handing him a musket, a bloody, blackened bayonet fastened to the muzzle. “Find ammunition!” Bekiaa had a musket now as well. Greg scooped a black cartridge box out of the sand and glanced inside. Empty. He saw another and opened the flap, discovering three paperlike cartridges, each containing a. 60-caliber ball and a trio of “buckshot” atop a load of powder. He had some caps in his shirt pocket already-just in case. Loading as he’d been trained, he joined the fusillade firing into the trench, yelling as savagely and incoherently as any of the ’Cats forming alongside him. Shields protected him now, placed there by Lemurians joining them from other parts of the line. A bolt grazed his inner forearm as he rammed down his final charge, and he looked up for a moment. Uncountable Grik had assembled beyond the trench, pausing for an instant across what had become a river of corpses they could almost walk across.

“Form square!” Bekiaa thundered.

Square? But that must mean… They were surrounded. Somehow, the line at the breastworks had fallen apart across a broad front. Only a few of the great guns spoke now, those facing the river, and maybe a couple on the extreme right, near the ship. Donaghey ’s guns still thundered furiously, but none was directed at the Grik infantry anymore, and Greg smelled wood smoke in the air.

He’d seen Lemurian Marines form a square only once before, and that had also been at the Battle of Aryaal-when everything fell apart. They’d saved themselves, managing to retreat in good order while embracing troops from other broken regiments. They did the same now, creating a temporary shield-studded barricade that sailors and other Marines could join, but this time, they had nowhere to go. The Grik were streaming across the trench now, and he poked at them with his bayonet as they came snarling toward him, battering at the shields with their sickle-shaped swords and their own bodies, slashing and gnawing with their teeth.

“I need ammunition!” he cried.

“There is no more,” Jamie Miller shouted. Somehow, the young surgeon had joined him in the press, a spear in his hands. The kid looked wounded, wearing so much blood, but didn’t act like it.

“We have to make it to the ship,” Greg roared. “Bekiaa? Can we move the square to the ship?”

“What good will that do?”

Greg wasn’t sure. He assumed Pruit still had something there, and if they could get more people aboard her, they might still ply Donaghey ’s landward guns. But he couldn’t see the ship anymore, over the mass of furry-feathery, reptilian shapes, and the wood smoke was growing thicker. Bekiaa probably thought Donaghey was afire. If she was… But trying to fight their way to Chapelle was impossible. It was twice as far, and there wasn’t even the chance of more ammunition in that direction. “Just do it, damn it! It’s our only choice!”

Slowly, the square moved like a vast turtle festooned with thousands of crossbow bolts jutting from shields like porcupine quills. The Grik seemed to divine their intent, and fought even more furiously to hold them in place and finish them. Wounded ’Cats fell and were left for the enemy to shred. Grik waved body parts, arms and legs, and even battered at the shields wi the macabre clubs.

“Don’t stop!” Bekiaa shrilled, her voice beginning to go. Greg had always been amazed by the volume Lemurians could achieve, but Bekiaa’s voice was nearly finished.

“Don’t stop!” he repeated, over and over. “We can’t help the wounded. Stay on your feet, whatever you do. If you fall, you’re dead!”

As if his words had summoned the bolt, Jamie Miller fell to the sand, black fletching on a dark shaft protruding from his side, his boyish face already pale and slack.

“No!”

“Leave me!” gurgled the former pharmacist’s mate, blood erupting from his mouth to pour down his beardless chin. Greg didn’t even stop to consider the hypocrisy. He grabbed the boy’s arm and tried to drag him, but Jamie pitched forward, face in the sand, and became a deadweight.

“No!”

“You must leave him,” Bekiaa croaked, moving beside him now. “He’s dead,” she pronounced gently. With tears welling in his sweat- and grime-crusted eyes, Garrett released the boy’s arm, feeling the lifeless fingers pass through his. Someone else had taken up his cry in Lemurian: “Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”

The shields were falling apart under the constant drumming of bolts, and more and more sailors and Marines fell in the painfully bright sand, staining it dark and red. Through it all, they continued to kill, and the enemy losses were disproportionately high, but Garrett had concluded that didn’t matter; the Grik reserves seemed infinite, and the square was all he knew anymore. He lost the musket, wrenched from his hands, and with none of the reservations he’d felt before, the cutlass came from its scabbard. Soon it was notched and black with blood.

He heard the surf, and thirst and exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him. The sun was high overhead, the sweltering heat a torment as harsh as death. He knew he couldn’t drink seawater, but he thought if they reached the ocean, he might take a moment to sip from his canteen. His personal war became one of reaching water, if only for the momentary relief it might bring. Smoke dried his throat even worse. It had reached a point where it stung his eyes and made it nearly impossible to breathe. Donaghey must be burning… yet her guns still fired. In his muddled mind, he couldn’t reconcile that.

Through the gasping, panting, trilling, and screaming of his comrades, he heard a different sound; shouts of encouragement, congratulation, relief. Still the chant “Don’t stop!” continued, but in a stronger, persuasive tone. A nearby crash of an eighteen-pounder stunned him, but it brought him out of the metronomic, cutlass-swinging zone he’d entered, and he glanced to his right, through the pink smear of sweat and blood clouding his vision.

At the water’s edge, a new, hasty breastworks had been added to the old, and two guns barked again, geysering sand into the air and sweeping down a mass of Grik rushing to get between Bekiaa’s square and the haven the works represented. The avenue momentarily clear, the square shattered and raced for the trench.

“Hurry, hurry!” came the shouts now. “Get your tails clear!” Almost before the last survivors staggered over the barricade, a stunning volley of arrows and “buck and ball” slammed the pursuing Grik to a juddering halt.

“Lay it on!” came Pruit Barry’s voice. “Hammer ’em! Fire at will!” For a few moments, the faster-firing arrows took up the slack, but soon the first muskets began crackling again. Greg stumbled toward Barry.

“My God, Greg,” Pruit said, “you look awful!”

“I feel awful,” Greg croaked, opening his canteen at last and taking a long gulp. He looked at Donaghey a short distance away, surrounded by swirling foam. She looked worse than he felt, but there were no flames. “I thought she was burning,” he said. “Where’s all the smoke coming from?”

Pruit shook his head. “Of the three sailing frigates we built, she’s always been charmed. Faster, tougher, prettier… She’s destroyed six gun-armed Grik ships while beached, for cryin’ out loud! All the smoke’s from one of the last three, half-sunk, aground, and burning a couple hundred yards to seaward. The other two were dismasted coming in. I bet they wind up near the one from last night.”

“Not charmed,” Garrett said. “Just damn good gunnery. Smitty deserves a medal when we finally get around to making some. So do you.”

To punctuate the statement, one of Donaghey ’s landward guns sent a roundshot churning through the momentarily checked Grik horde, spewing weapons and body parts in all directions. The Grik reacted little, beyond waving their weapons and hissing louder.

“I guess she’s out of canister,” Greg observed. “Roundshot’s okay with them bunched up like that, but canister would be better.” He pointed at Pruit’s magazine pouches, and Barry handed over a couple.

“I wonder why they stopped?” Bekiaa asked, referring to the Grik as she joined them. Her once-white leather armor no longer showed any white at all. She gasped her thanks when Pruit handed her his canteen.

“I don’t know. Orders, I guess. Imagine that. We stopped ’em, sure, but normally they’d’ve come on again by now.” He gestured around. “And we’ll stop ’em again. After that? I bet we’re down to three hundred effectives. God knows if Chapelle’s even alive.” He snorted. “Eventually, they can just walk across us and stomp us to death.”

“Cap-i-taan!” someone shouted. “Something happens!” Barry and Garrett both trotted to the breastworks. Resentful-looking Grik were making a lane for something coming through their ranks.

“What the hell?”

Oddly attired-uniformed-Grik trotted through the gap and formed two ranks facing the barricade. For a moment, the shooting stopped while the allies, amazed, watched this very un-Grik-like behavior.

“What are they carrying?” Bekiaa asked. They look like…” She hefted her weapon. “Kind of like muskets!”

“God almighty! I think they are!” Garrett said, recognizing the shape, if not the function. They were long, fish-tail-looking things, with levers underneath instead of trigger guards, and an odd arrangement on the side held what looked like a piece of smoldering match. “Shoot them!” he commanded.

‘What’s the matter with you, you bunch of fuzzy goofs?” Barry yelled. “Fire!”

Immediately, muskets resumed crackling and arrows swooshed. The uniformed Grik began to fall, and those behind them recoiled a bit from the renewed fusillade, bellowing their rage and frustration. But the front ranks of the Grik, even while taking casualties and blocking the replying bolts of those behind them, stood impassive, enduring the beating without apparent notice. One of the strange Grik horns brayed in the distance-a new note-and the enemy raised awkward-looking guns with all the appearance of taking deliberate aim.

“I’ll be da…” Pruit began, but the Grik volley silenced him forever. A ball-it had to be a ball-struck him above the left eye and the side of his head erupted pink, flinging him backward into the trench. He wasn’t alone, and there were cries of confusion and pain.

“Kill them!” Garrett roared, and the ’Cats around him roared as well, in anguish and anger. The horn squawked again, joined by many more, making a dreadful, familiar sound. The rest of the Grik charged.

“Now, at last I see what we face,” Halik remarked grimly, watching the final, remorseless assault. There’d be no stopping it this time; the numbers were too overwhelming for the pitifully few enemy survivors to resist. “That… formation… the enemy assumed, to join those others by the sea… masterful! How can they achieve such a thing, even in the face of certain defeat?”

Niwa recognized what could only be admiration in the Grik general’s voice. “It is called courage, General Halik,” he said, oddly sick at heart. “Grik Uul are capable of fantastic discipline; they fling themselves forward with no regard for themselves-usually-but they’re driven by instinct, urges they don’t understand. Much of that ‘instinct’ is conditioned, but it serves the same purpose. The vast difference is that they obey commands to do what they’re conditioned and instinctively inclined to do. Our enemies, the human Americans and Lemurians, ‘tree folk,’ each recognize the danger and challenge as well as any Hij, as I said. They stand and fight with their hearts and minds while retaining the ability to think and plan, even until the very end.” He gestured toward the distant ship and the rapidly shrinking semicircle around it in the surf. “They know they’re doomed, General, but still most do not ‘fall prey.’”

“Our ‘special troops’ performed well in their initial trial,” Halik pointed out.

Niwa nodded. “Yes. I saw none flee. The survivors will make excellent trainers and ‘firsts of twenty’ or more, but was it courage that made them stand, or merely more intense conditioning? That’s the key question. How can we build true courage among ‘our’ warriors?”

Halik was at a loss. “I honestly do not know. How exactly is this ‘courage’ formed?”

“Think. You managed it on your own. It must be built atop a foundation few Uul survive to lay: character… and a cause.”

Halik’s crest suddenly rose. Distant from the fighting, he’d been holding his helmet under his arm. “What is that annoying sound?”

Niwa heard nothing over the climactic roar that heralded the final moments of the battle. Soon it would be over, and all the defenders slain. “I don’t know,” he said, surprisingly glum, but then he did.

Suddenly, six very peculiar-looking craft- air craft!-lumbered over the trailing mass of Grik warriors, jostling to get in the fight. They were clearly seaplanes, strangely reminiscent of the American PBY Niwa had seen. American insignias were distinct on their blue-and-white wings and forward fuselage. Over the horde, barrels detached and plummeted down, cracking open and spilling their contents in the sand. A few warriors were crushed, but Niwa was too stunned to suspect what was to come. The first flight pulled up and away, banking east over the water, their motors audible now over the hush that had fallen over the horde. Another flight came in, a little higher. Small objects fell, aarently thrown or dropped by someone in the back part of each plane. Realization dawned and despite their distance, Niwa pulled Halik to the ground as the beach erupted in a long, orange fireball that roiled with greasy black smoke.

Both Greg’s pistols were empty; his own, and the one he’d taken from Captain Barry. He didn’t know where the dead man’s ’03 Springfield wound up. Still conscientious, he’d thrust the Colts in his belt, and his pockets clacked with empty magazines even though he doubted he’d ever refill them. His cutlass was now scarred and stained, and he had a wide, bloody cut on his forehead from a blow that left him dazed and more than half-blinded with blood. Bekiaa had dragged him into the water where, hopefully, someone would hoist him onto his ship. It was probably appropriate that he should die on Donaghey, but there were still others fighting here, knee-deep in the surf, and he couldn’t leave them. Bekiaa had vanished.

He heard the planes, but the sound didn’t register. A Grik warrior lunged at him, off balance in the surf, and Greg hacked down across its neck, driving it into the pinkish foam. He hacked it again for good measure. There were more Grik, though, many more, and he raised the cutlass again. An unnatural, all-consuming goosh! interspersed with a staccato of small detonations heated his face, and an eerie brightness glowed through the bloody film in his eyes. It was followed by the most unearthly shriek of agony and terror he’d ever heard before.

Donaghey ’s guns, silent for some time as she conserved her final shots, barked almost over his head, and the concussion sent him reeling forward. Deafened, he almost fell. Exhausted as he was, he might have drowned in the knee-deep water. Bekiaa suddenly had him again, dragging him forward, toward the enemy! Her helmet was gone, and several crossbow bolts dangled from her leather armor like ornaments. He had no idea if any had found her flesh, but she didn’t care if they had. She was blinking with joy, and her ears were flattened against her skull in feral satisfaction. He almost fell again as they reached the sand, but she continued urging him forward. Others joined them, their harsh voices cracking with thirst and savage delight. Ahead, he finally saw the flames and caught the distinctive smell of burning gasoline, combined with the equally singular stench of cooking flesh and burning leather.

Wild shapes convulsed and capered in the flames, amid the continuous anguished squeals. Grik warriors on this side of the inferno fought with frantic abandon, slaying one another to escape the maniacal rush of survivors and the hellish fire behind. Steadily, they were pushed back, past the breastworks they’d so recently overrun. Some broke and ran through the flames, mostly dying in the attempt. A pair of the uniformed Grik still stood, mechanically loading their weird guns, seemingly oblivious, until they were cut down. Garrett remained confused, his head throbbed, and he couldn’t focus. All he knew was that something astonishing must have occurred. He should be dead already.

Another flight of planes, “CV-1” boldly stenciled on their tails, rumbled past, bombs tumbling amid the enemy beyond the fire, and suddenly Greg Garrett knew. First Fleet had arrived at last. He spun and wiped his eyes with his salty wet sleeve. His vision remained blurry, but he stared hard out to sea. Far to the south, near the hazy horizon, he could just distinguish the range-distorted shapes of ships and smoke, stretching as far as he could see in either direction.

“It’s Big Sal and Humfra-Dar!” he croaked, dropping to his knees in the sand. “God bless Ben Mallory and his ‘Nancys’!”

Bekiaa collapsed beside him. “I am going to be very nice to the Air Corps, in the future,” she gasped.

General Halik was hissing words Niwa didn’t understand. He assumed they were profane.

“We must withdraw,” Niwa said. More planes were bombing the artillery positions. A bright flash amid a thunderclap of sound and a cloud of white smoke testified to the almost-certain eradication of a battery nearby.

“This army is largely intact! We can still finish the enemy on the beach!” Halik insisted.

“Spoken just like Regent Tsalka or General Esshk at Baalkpan,” Niwa sneered. “Think! With those things”-he pointed at a passing plane-“pounding your Uul at will, most will turn prey and be of no use even if they’re successful! Call them back, General, withdraw and re-form. Then we can consider what to do next!”

“Will they land here? It makes no sense,” Halik replied after a moment, taking Niwa’s advice and beginning to think critically again. “We are far from any industrial centers.”

“I don’t know,” Niwa confessed, “but there’s a good harbor nearby. Regardless, with their planes and likely big guns, we can’t stop them on the beach, in the open.” He sighed. “We must let them land, wherever they choose, and see what develops. Attack them in the jungles perhaps, where their planes will help them little. However we proceed, for now this army must withdraw with its will and experience intact. Remember, we weren’t sent to save Ceylon, as much as to learn what we can of the enemy and how to counter him.”

Halik nodded. “You are right, my friend. I fear my blood began to boil with the passion of the arena. We will pull back what we can. As you know, sometimes that is not easy. We have other armies at our disposal, but this one has faced the enemy. It might be easier to teach what we desire.” He paused. “We will let the enemy land and see how he deploys. Try to discover his intent, then devise a strategy based on that.” He raised a clawed hand. “I remember our instructions, but I am not ready to concede Ceylon just yet.”

By nightfall, the beach around Donaghey was packed with Marines, as well as both the Silver and Black Battalions of Safir Maraan’s “Six Hundred.” The bulk of the fleet had moved up the coast a short distance to a more protected anchorage where it launched the first “official” invasion of Grik Ceylon. There was little resistance. For the most part, it seemed as if the army that nearly exterminated the survivors of Revenge, Tolson, and Donaghey had simply vanished. Of those survivors, fewer than four hundred still lived, mostly wounded, and Kathy McCoy came ashore with a large medical contingent to triage and stabilize the injured before sending them out to Dowden, which stood offshore to defend against more Grik naval attacks. Ultimately, the wounded would be moved to Salissa or Humfra-Dar.

“It must have been a great battle,” Safir Maraan said softly, gazing at the sea of enemy dead. The stench of their cooked flesh was still strong, despite the wind that drove it inland.

“It wasn’t so great,” Greg quipped, sitting on a crate in the sand while Kathy herself stitched his scalp. Russ Chapelle was patiently waiting his turn under the nurse’s needle. He had several long claw gashes on his chest, but he’d survived, as had a fair percentage of those near the river. It was almost as if they’d been forgotten for a time, once the main line collapsed.

“It looked pretty ‘great’ to me,” Russ said, “Especially the way you pulled everybody into a square to save what you could. Then, of course, the planes’ cooking the Grik was swell!”

“I didn’t do the square,” Greg admitted. “Lieutenant Bekiaa did that. She did nearly everything that kept us alive. Her and Smitty.”

“That’s ‘Cap-i-taan’ Bekiaa now, according to General Aalden,” Safir said.

“Any sign of my exec? Lieutenant Saaran-Gaani?” Garrett asked.

“He’s okay,” Russ told him. “A little worse for wear, like all of us, but he made it to us on the left when things fell apart.” He pointed at the sea. “Already out on Dowden.”

Garrett sighed with relief. “Good. We lost so many… I saw Barry buy it. One of those goofy Grik muskets.”

“They’re matchlocks,” Russ said. “I bet that was a nasty surprise. We sent some to Alden. The good thing is, they won’t be worth a damn in the rain. We might use that.”

“What about Jamie?” Kathy asked, finishing her sewing.

“Dead,” Garrett said simply. “I… saw that too.”

“Well,” said Russ after a silent moment, “I guess us Navy types are out of it for a while. They’re gonna try to patch Donaghey up and pull her off, but it’s Pete’s, Rolak’s, and Her Highness’s fight now.” He nodded at the “Orphan Queen.”

“Not if I can help it,” Garrett swore. “ Donaghey ’ll be out of the war for months. Pete had better find me an infantry assignment or, by God, I’ll scratch up a regiment out of the guys we had here!”

Russ brightened. “Hey! That’s not a bad idea! You rig it; I’ll join it. Maybe they’ll give us that spitfire Bekiaa. Hell, we’ll win the war all by ourselves!”