4
////// Alden’s Perimeter
Lake Flynn, West of Madras
Grik India
Thunder muttered in the thick night sky, and accompanying strobes of lightning competed with the desultory flashing pulse and rumble of artillery. Brief torrents of rain seemed physically shaken from the trembling, pregnant clouds of sodden air, to bulge the swollen lake and flood its muddy, miserable environs. Around Lake Flynn and the upper reaches of the river that fed it through the high, craggy, Rocky Gap, the remnants of Alden’s Allied Expeditionary Force (AEF) had dug in tighter than a tick.
A network of defensive trenches, protected by a blanket of the new barbed wire, zigzagged around the perimeter several lines deep in places. The reliable and deadly twelve-pounder “Napoleons”—as General Alden called them—were placed in thoughtfully situated redoubts where they could lay heavy fire support down long sections of the line. The lighter, more numerous six-pounders strengthened the line itself at frequent intervals. Alden’s own beloved 1st Marines, of General Muln-Rolak’s I Corps, formed a mobile reserve with their breech-loading Baalkpan Arsenal “Allin-Silva” conversion rifles that fired a potent.50-80 cartridge. The rest of Rolak’s I Corps held the stopper in the Rocky Gap. Rolak remained a little exposed to a Grik thrust to cut him off from the rest of I Corps and the beefed-up, reinforced remnant of General Queen Safir Maraan’s II Corps in the main west-east-south defensive line, but a grand battery placed in a veritable fortress had bloodily repulsed such attempts so far. True, many of II Corps’s “reinforcements” were actually support troops, auxiliaries, and even sailors, but all were veterans now. The heaps of festering Grik corpses, packed so thick that even the rain couldn’t subdue the stench, lapped against every part of the line and grimly testified to that. General Rolak felt secure.
Somehow, General Pete Alden, onetime Marine sergeant aboard the lost USS Houston on another, different earth, and now General of the Armies and Marines of the Grand Alliance, had managed to wring order from the chaos of disaster. He—and Keje, Alden supposed—had lost the port city of Madras, and his northern component of the Allied Expeditionary Force had been cut off from most lines of convenient support. In the confusion of that month-old battle, III Corps, under General Faan-Ma-Mar, had slashed its way up from the south against scattered, surprised resistance, and his force was much appreciated, but it had been a costly move. Now Alden’s three savaged corps were as effectively surrounded as Colonel Billy Flynn’s scratch division beyond the Rocky Gap had been, and Flynn’s force had ultimately been all but annihilated. But Pete had more defensible terrain; secure internal lines of communication; and more troops, artillery, and mortars than Flynn enjoyed on his crummy, rocky hill. There was an elasticity of depth, and the Grik had difficulty moving through the dense forest to mass against the formidable defenses he’d established, defenses Flynn never had the time, troops, or equipment to emplace. The lake in the center of the perimeter also meant Pete had a ready “airfield” for almost seventy PB-1B Nancy floatplanes that could provide air support. Perhaps most important, he’d secured most of the baggage intended to support an extended campaign. The AEF was in . . . decent shape.
For now, Pete Alden reminded himself darkly, checking his water-beaded watch in the lamplight of the CP tent. He was amazed the thing still worked. The case was badly corroded and the wristband had been replaced twice now when the leather rotted off his wrist. For now, he almost sighed. Only forty of his plucky Nancys were actually airworthy, and all had seen a lot of action with limited maintenance. Most came from the shattered carrier Salissa, and had been through a lot before they ever arrived, unable to return to their badly damaged ship. Fuel, spare parts, bombs—everything heavy that took up space aboard the meager but gradually more frequent supply flights was in short supply. All fresh supplies came from Ceylon—still in Allied hands—or via TF Arracca, which lurked offshore, from Andaman Island. It was a vital but rickety logistics train, stretched to the absolute limit.
The planes and their pilots were just as exhausted as the rest of Pete’s army after months of almost constant combat, and there was no end in sight. Still, in the Lemurians that made up his army, from such diverse places and even cultures, he had the best troops he could want, and a good position to defend. But the swarming—unnervingly more professional—Grik host he faced was too numerous, and frankly too damn good, for Pete to consider any unsupported offensive action, and it galled his soul. Worse, for right or wrong, Pete still thought the whole situation was mostly his fault.
“It’s almost time,” he told his staff, also waiting in the shelter of the tent. “Anything from the lookouts?”
“No Gen-er-aal Aal-den,” replied a stocky ’Cat hunched over the wireless receiver, an assistant methodically turning a hand generator.
“If we can’t fly in this muck, Grik zeppelins sure can’t,” the young, blond Lieutenant Mark Leedom said, nodding at the sky. Leedom had been a torpedoman, but had become one of the hottest pilots they had.
“But we do fly in it, Lieutenant,” Pete disagreed. “We have to.” He shrugged. “Maybe not combat missions, but without the supply runs, we won’t last long—and we’re losing a lot of planes and pilots just bringing in the beans and bullets.”
“Stuff wears out,” Leedom pointed out in a low tone. “So do people. At least we’re starting to get stuff up the Tacos River from the coast,” he added. The river had been named for Leedom’s Lemurian backseater, who’d been killed in action.
“We are,” Alden agreed, “but the Grik’ll figure that out eventually and start sniping at the boats and barges all the way in and out. They’ll line the river with heavy guns—or, God help us, put a floating battery in it.”
“At least they can’t get one of their baattle-ships upstream,” said the Lemurian General Daanis of General Maraan’s Silver Battalion of her famous “600.” He was tall for a ’Cat and had the same black fur as his Aryaalan queen.
“The water is too shallow, even with this unending rain,” agreed Captain Jis-Tikkar. The sable-furred Tikker, as he was better known, was COFO (Commander of Flight Operations) aboard Salissa, or Big Sal, before the Battle of Madras. He was Leedom’s boss and had brought what remained of Salissa’s 1st Naval Air Wing to join Leedom’s pickup squadrons of Nancys after his ship was badly damaged by suicide glider bombs dropped by zeppelins, of all things. Some of the weapons had even made attacks within the perimeter, but most crashed harmlessly in the lake or surrounding jungle, and their carrier zeps had been shot down. “And there is the ford just east of the lake. Even we must transfer supplies to other barges to bring them here. No baatle-ship can pass the ford.”
“They might think of something,” Leedom warned. “We can’t ever take for granted just because we can’t do something, they can’t. Not again. If one of their battlewagons—or anything with big guns—ever does make it to the lake, we’ll be in big trouble.” Nobody replied. It was obvious such a thing could be catastrophic.
“There’s way too many worst-case scenarios for me, the way things stand,” Pete said at last. “We’re holding our own, barely, but the Grik keep growing stronger. We’re standing on the end of an awful thin twig, supply wise, and Keje’s got to figure some way to retake Madras!”
“Keje will come,” Tikker said with conviction. “Salissa is under repair, and newer, better ships swell his fleet. Colonel Maallory is on Ceylon with his P-Forties, and they await only more powerful weapons.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Pete said, wishing he was. The Grik fleet in Madras was also swelling. He looked at his watch again. “Come on. The Clipper’ll be here shortly. I want to see what they brought.”
General Alden ducked out into the slackening drizzle, followed by half a dozen men and ’Cats. The lake wasn’t far, its banks bordering the navigable portion lit by fires. There were a lot of fires in the damp forest: watch fires, campfires, places where wet troops could gather and dry their feet for a while and also clear beacons for the planes that came by night. From the sky, the lake would appear as an inky darkness surrounded by bright dots. Then, of course, there were the flashes of lightning and the seemingly endless battle that flared periodically. Even as Pete watched, the rumbling flashes quickened in the south, across the water, and he tensed. It’s so strange, he thought, how I’ve learned to gain a feel for the “life” of the battle by the surrealistic display that pulses in the night. “The Second and Ninth Aryaal are catching it,” he observed.
“Yes, sir,” Daanis agreed. “That’s the second thrust there tonight. This Gener-aal Haalik tests us everywhere.”
“Him or his pet Jap,” Pete grumbled, referring to the general, Niwa, whom Rolak’s personal Grik interpreter, Hij-Geerki, had identified for them. Pete wasn’t sure how “Geeky” got his information, since few Grik prisoners could ever be secured and those that were usually just . . . died. It was possible he went among the wounded after a fight and spoke to them as one of their own, but Rolak wouldn’t confirm that. Pete shook his head. It was hard to imagine that canny old warrior, Lord Muln-Rolak, trusting the weird little Grik so. “They’re not content to just keep us cornered here; they want us gone—or that damn Kurokawa does.” They’d also learned that General of the Sea Hisashi Kurokawa himself was in personal charge of this enemy campaign.
“We still block the Rocky Gap; the most direct route to Madraas,” Major Daanis said. “His fleet is there, but he cannot feel secure as long as we are at his back. . . . There! I think I hear the large plane. It sounds different from the others.”
Daanis was right. A crackling rumble of multiple engines throttling back reached their ears, and they saw the blue exhaust flares slide across the darkness, dropping toward the darker water. Torches flared to life in little boats on the lake so the pilot would have some reference for where the slick surface was, and the engines roared as the pilot advanced his throttles to check his descent. A moment later, a yellow-gray splash reflected the firelight and the glare of lightning and war as the big PB-5 “Clipper” slammed down on the lake. One of the powerboats raced to lead it in to the hasty docks. Pete and his companions strode out on the rough-hewn planks and edged away from the busy stevedores unloading a long train of barges recently arrived from the transfer point at the ford. Crates of ammunition, weapons, food, equipment, and medical supplies were piling high, waiting to be dispersed to the scattered, improvised supply sheds, or whisked away to needy troops.
“They’re weird-lookin’ ducks,” Pete said as the shape of the PB-5 resolved itself, drawing near.
“I think they’re swell,” Leedom said. “They look kind of like a Sikorsky S-40—with a proper tail.”
“I do not care what they look like, only what they can do,” Tikker said. “They can carry a ton of supplies—or maybe bombs—and more people than anything else we have. Once they are equipped with Colonel Maallory’s rad-iaals, we will have true, long-range reconnaissance such as we haven’t enjoyed since we lost the old PBY.”
“And a relatively heavy bomber,” Pete added. “I sure would like a heavy bomber!” He paused, looking at Leedom. “Anything else on those . . . mounted folks you and Captain Saachic reported when you broke out of the trap west of the Rocky Gap?” Pete immediately regretted asking. Leedom or Tikker would’ve reported if their pilots saw anything. Besides, what happened to Colonel Flynn and several thousand troops was still a very sore subject, and Leedom, shot down in the action, and the few others who made it out were amazingly lucky. Still puzzling, however, was that the survivors reported meeting some very oddly mounted . . . strangers, apparently led by some Czech guy. The mystery was driving Pete nuts.
“Ah, no, sir,” Leedom said. “The guys are keeping their eyes peeled.”
The big seaplane approached the dock and was fended off and secured while Pete and his staff waited expectantly. Finally, a hatch opened in the wood-and-fabric fuselage aft of the port wing, and a Lemurian face appeared.
“Watcha got?” Pete cried out.
“Mortar bombs, mostly,” the ’Cat replied. “An’ dispatches for you, Gener-aal.”
“How many wounded can you take out this time?” Daanis asked.
“Only ten, they say, which means I take fifteen, anyway,” the pilot grinned. “’Cats don’t weigh so much as hu-maans! I ordered to pick up passengers this time too. Don’t know who. They names in the dispatch.” He tossed a wrapped packet to Major Daanis, who’d jumped down on a floating gangway being pushed up to the hatch. Daanis nodded and blinked his thanks, then brought the packet to Pete.
“It says COTGA, Gener-aal,” Daanis said. COTGA stood for “Chairman of the Grand Alliance,” which meant the dispatch was from Adar himself. A dispatch from Adar was akin to receiving direct orders from President Roosevelt on another world.
Alden started to untie the string around the wrapping but hesitated. Despite weeks of assurances via wireless, he half expected the dispatch to carry orders for his relief, and he wasn’t sure he didn’t deserve it. He’d even offered to resign, but the wireless replies continued to express Adar’s trust. Of course, under the circumstances, he wouldn’t just blow “You’re fired” all over the sky, would he? He untied the string and unwrapped the waxy paper around the pages. “Gimme a light, wilya?” he asked, and someone raised a lantern.
The rain had eased for the moment and just a few drops fell on the pages he quickly read. To his mixed relief, there was only a brief preface regarding his offer to step aside, consisting of a statement of full and unreserved confidence. The rest was mostly concerned with an appraisal of what was being done to sustain his position and the assets on their way to him or Keje. They were the commanders on the scene, and Adar wouldn’t tell them their business. Pete smiled at that. He and Keje had already discussed some possibilities via coded wireless, and the assets Adar was committing would be a big help. Finally, the pages described the overall strategic stance of the Grand Alliance. Adar’s careful scrawl confirmed that Second Fleet and their Imperial Allies had secured the Enchanted Isles as a base to prepare operations directly against the Dominion, and reiterated that Captain Reddy and USS Walker continued to recover in Maa-ni-la. Finally, he expressed his view that Alden’s situation was a temporary setback that would soon be put to rights.
Pete caught himself nodding in agreement, pleased by the note and impressed by the resources being lavished on First Fleet. If he could hold out long enough, he was sure Keje would deal with Kurokawa and retake Madras. He sobered. But Keje would have to hurry.
The last three pages were not for him, but he was grateful for them regardless. They were written orders from Adar himself for three very stubborn Lemurians to get aboard the Clipper and proceed to other assignments. The first, he knew, was pointless. It ordered General Queen Safir Maraan to Ceylon, to take command of IV Corps and prepare for the arrival of additional forces. Pete would pass the orders along, but there was no chance they’d be obeyed. Safir would never leave the troops she led now while they were in such a fix—and as a head of state in her own right within the Alliance, she couldn’t really be forced to. The second set of orders were for Captain Tikker, standing right beside Pete, to report in person to CINCWEST, to resume his duties as COFO aboard Big Sal. The veteran flyer with the polished 7.7-mm Japanese cartridge case thrust through a hole in his ear read the orders just as Pete did.
“With respect, Gen-er-aal,” he said, “why don’t I take the next flight of Naan-cees out to Arracca, then catch a flight from her to Andaman? We have few enough pilots, and some of our remaining machines need a . . . steady hand.”
In addition to their combat duties—the few machine gun–armed Nancys were hell on Grik zeps, and the rest were decent little dive-bombers—the planes were also making supply runs out to the Arracca battle group beyond the eastern horizon. Arracca was another Home-turned carrier, and the flights then returned with the small loads they could carry and repaired or replaced aircraft.
“I guess I can let you do that,” Pete allowed, “but I may need your or”—he glanced significantly at Lieutenant Leedom—“his help making sure this last set of orders is obeyed.”
Leedom took the page Pete handed him and read it. He swore. “You know she hasn’t even spoken to me since I carried her out of that mess on the other side of the gap? She blames me for her surviving when most everyone else didn’t. Hell,” he murmured, “I don’t much care for the thought of that myself.”
“You’re her friend, though, and she’ll listen to you—maybe just because you feel the same way she does,” Pete said.
Leedom’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, I’ll tell her. But where is she?”
Pete gestured at the battle flaring on the other side of the lake. “Over there, most likely,” he said sadly. “Find her quick and get her back here and aboard that plane.” He paused. “And be careful! You’re acting COFO again. I can’t afford to lose you.”
* * *
Captain Bekiaa-Sab-At limped through the sucking mud at the bottom of the trench, Colonel Billy Flynn’s ’03 Springfield slung over her right shoulder. In her mind, Flynn’s confidence in her and his example of simple courage and self-sacrifice had been his greatest legacy to her, but the magnificent rifle from another world was his final, personal gift. Bekiaa meant to see that it was well employed in his honor. She wasn’t supposed to be on the line; the wounds to her left arm and leg had only torn the flesh, but they’d been ugly and painful. They were on the mend, though, and medical release or not, the battle line was the only place she could get even for all the friends she’d lost. Her left arm was almost numb and the fingers tingled strangely, but the leg hurt. A lot. Bekiaa welcomed the pain. It kept her rage hot and sharp—and kept her motivated to kill as many Grik as she could. Flynn’s old Springfield helped with that. There wasn’t a more accurate rifle in the world, as far as she knew, and she’d become an unattached sniper, for all intents and purposes, killing Grik at ranges unimaginable even for the few troops armed with the Allin-Silva conversions.
Her delicate, feline features were hard set and no one, not even General Grisa, whom she trudged past without a word, dared question her right to be there. She was literally moving to the sound of the guns, as the fighting flared along a section of the line defended mostly by Aryaalans and B’mbaadans. Blinking troops watched her pass, and all knew who she was and what she’d been through. They even understood her urge to avenge her friends. Most knew she was an outstanding commander, however, and wished she had a regiment of her own instead of pursuing this single-minded, personal vendetta. She even agreed with some of the more reproachful blinking that reflected that opinion. She was shirking her duty to some extent. But the surgeons hadn’t officially released her yet, and until they did, she’d fight however she could. This was her notion of healing.
The firing ahead grew more intense and a pair of guns snapped at the darkness, their tongues of flame and billowing smoke clawing at the forefront of a Grik charge boring in. She knew she wasn’t ready for bayonet work, and if she got any closer she’d just be in the way. Moving up on a firing step, she peered out at the battlefield. The Grik were coming in the same old way, mostly mindless, obsessed only with coming to grips with their enemy. The brass had begun to realize they faced almost two distinct species of Grik now: one that fought in this old, haphazard, wasteful style, and another that was more thoughtful, more disciplined. She wasn’t sure what to make of that, but the combination was both confusing and somewhat effective. The Grik that General Rolak faced at the far end of the rising gap would rarely attack like this, but they couldn’t be shifted either. They were clearly protecting something—defending like no Grik they’d ever known. Bekiaa didn’t know if they were protecting Grik generals or simply trying to keep the allies off the high plains where they might threaten Grik supplies, but the point was they’d never met Grik who could—or would—defend at all. Even Hij-Geerki considered it an alien concept and had no explanation. Bekiaa, like General Alden, she suspected, was sure this new General Halik had something to do with it, but what he’d done, she had no idea.
She shook her head. That was not her concern at present. Carefully, she eased farther up for a better view. Many Grik had muskets now; powerful, if ridiculously crude. They were also matchlocks and almost useless in this weather. Still, some few Grik had learned to use them effectively, even at relatively long ranges, so Bekiaa was careful as she exposed herself. She’d feel awfully stupid if she got her head blown off by some half-wit Grik and his stupid musket, particularly armed as she was. With her muddy, blood-blackened, rhino-pig armor and brindled fur, she was almost indistinguishable from the terrain and she made the most of it, sliding the Springfield up through a gap between a shattered tree stump and lump of mud. Nothing was coming directly at her, though a few musket balls fluttered overhead or spattered her with mud. She strained her eyes—much better in the dark than her enemies’—looking for a Grik leader of some kind. She dreamed of catching Halik himself in her sights, but knew there was no way she’d ever know if she did. Grik officers, even senior noncoms, she supposed—wore taller helmets to accommodate the crests they grew with maturity. Some even wore metal breastplates and capes, but they all looked the same to her. She scanned the press for the taller, metal helmets.
There! A Grik fitting her criteria had paused on the flank of the charge boring in to her right. For a moment it just stood there, waving its warriors on, sometimes whacking them with its sword. Encouraging them. That was new, disconcerting behavior they’d also seen more and more. Bekiaa flipped the safety from the right to the left side of the bolt and took aim. The range was about three hundred tails, she guessed, a convenient range for the sights—if somewhat difficult in the darkness. She squeezed the trigger, and the rifle bucked against her shoulder. The Grik dropped like a stone. Smoothly working the bolt, she spotted another target.
The defenders to her right fired a volley, and choking smoke blanketed her field of view, engulfing the Grik charge as it bored in. Another heavy volley stuttered, stabbing through the smoke with jets of fire as the second rank joined the fight. Firing came from the Grik too somehow, and Lemurian screams joined the shrieks of Grik before the charge ever went home. Some of the firing might be coming from rifled muskets captured from the First Sular and most of Flynn’s Rangers. There’d been little ammunition left for anything, and practically none for the breechloaders carried by the 1st of the 2nd Marines, but the enemy had the design now. They’d have designs for lots of things. The Nancy that crashed on the field below the hill had burned completely, but they’d have its engine to look at. The far-superior carriage design of Allied artillery would be theirs to study, as would the mortars, comm gear, and small arms, of course. Besides the loss of Colonel Flynn and so many brave Lemurians, the massacre was a disaster in terms of intelligence.
Bekiaa lost her target and had to give up looking for a while as mud-spattered troops streamed past in the trench, moving to reinforce the part of the line under attack. She didn’t know where they came from and hoped there wouldn’t now be an attack wherever they’d been. She shook her head. The war had been terrible, but almost simple, in a way, for a long time. The Grik had been fiercely lethal, almost numberless, but utterly predictable. Ever since the arrival of this new General Halik, however, that had changed. He was clearly still burdened with a lot of “ordinary” Grik, and likely ordinary Grik leaders, but he’d brought new thinking to the war, and a new kind of Grik as well. As General Muln-Rolak often said, this was not a “fun” war, but it was increasingly interesting—and dangerous.
The last reinforcements hurried past just as the Grik charge struck with a crashing metallic thunder, and Bekiaa started looking for targets again. There, barely visible in the flash-lit gloom about four hundred tails distant, just at the limit of the killing field hacked out of the forest. If that’s not a Grik general surrounded by his staff, I shall eat my helmet! She flipped up the sight and raised the slide to the appropriate mark, then settled the rifle into a rigid rest. The curved steel trigger was cool against her finger pad as she took up the lash and held it near the breaking point. Just a gentle squeeze now, and the report and recoil of the rifle would come as a great surprise if all went well.
“Bekiaa!” came a voice. She didn’t quite jerk the shot, but it didn’t feel right. She was almost sure the bullet would go low left.
“What?” she barked harshly, still watching. There was a commotion among the “staff meeting,” so she probably hit somebody, but she was furious at the interruption. Suddenly, she almost laughed. She was angry about being distracted in the middle of a battle!
“What?” she asked more softly, turning to look at Lieutenant Mark Leedom. “You spoiled my aim, Lieutenant,” she continued, trying to decipher the human face moving in the dark. She gave up. “Why are you here? This is an infantry fight.” She couldn’t help blinking wry amusement then. “I thought you preferred to ‘stay above such things.’”
Leedom’s flight suit was nearly as filthy as her battle dress, and Bekiaa wondered what he’d been through to find her. Even so, the young lieutenant’s face split in a wide grin.
“I still surely do, Captain, but if I gotta carry a rifle”—he sheepishly hoisted a musket—“I’d just as soon do it with you—or for you.”
“Are things that desperate yet again?”
“Huh? Oh! No . . . not yet, anyway.”
“Then why are you here?” she repeated.
Leedom shrugged. “Lookin’ for you. General Alden thought you might just hide from anybody else he sent. I wasn’t sure you wouldn’t hide from me.”
“So you sneaked up on me.”
“No! Well . . . yeah.” The battle still raged to their right while they stood looking at each other, but the firing grew more intense and mortars began erupting amid the Grik horde. Both had heard far more desperate fighting, had felt the sense of uncertainty around them as the line teetered on the brink of collapse. There was no such sense now. It was as if the rabid bloodletting, so close to where they stood, didn’t really affect them.
“Why?”
Leedom fished in his pocket and brought out a folded sheet of coarse paper. “Orders, Captain. For you. Please,” he said when Bekiaa hesitated, “at least take them. You can do what you want with them later, but at least I’ve done what I was told. General Alden can be sore at you.”
“What do they say?” Bekiaa asked, finally relenting. She could read some now, but even her eyes might not be up to deciphering the little words on the dark page.
“Would I read your mail?”
“Yes,” Bekiaa said with suddenly fond blinking. “What are the orders?”
“Well . . . there’s a Clipper, one of those big flying boats, sitting in the lake waiting for you. Alden wants you on it.”
“Destination?”
“Andaman—and USS Donaghey, under Captain Garrett, to command his Marines. He asked for you specifically, if you could be spared.” Leedom looked toward the battle, then back at Bekiaa. “Or you can go all the way back to Baalkpan to help Risa train up her part of this new commando outfit she and Chack are putting together. I guess it’s up to you.”
Bekiaa looked toward the battle as well. Some Grik were starting to run, even as others slew them for it. The attack was on the brink of failure, and no reserves were coming up. Other Grik were withdrawing from the fight in good order—but they were dragging the corpses of the slain, and she wondered at that. The rest of the attack finally broke and ran in something reminiscent of Courtney Bradford’s “Grik Rout,” and the cheers almost drowned the continuing fire that chased the enemy all the way back to the forest’s edge.
“So it is more a request or suggestion than orders,” she said softly.
“I don’t know if I’d put it like that,” Leedom replied, scrutinizing the page. “Says ‘orders’ right here.” He snorted. “Course, I’m sure they already know what General Maraan’s gonna tell ’em to do with the orders they sent her.”
They both chuckled at that, but Bekiaa’s grin faded. Lemurians had few facial expressions. A grin was a grin, and anger was unmistakable on their faces if one knew them well, but otherwise they relied on blinking, ear and tail positions, and body language. To Leedom’s still limited perception, Bekiaa had become unreadable. “Can I be spared?” she finally asked herself aloud. She’d stayed to fight this campaign out of loyalty to Colonel Flynn—but Flynn was dead, and all she was really doing was hunting individual Grik; not much of a contribution to the overall effort. Alden would probably give her a regiment, medical release or not, if she stopped playing hooky, as the Americans called it. . . . But was that what she wanted? Then again, as much as she loved Risa and Chack, they were building a force not too different from Flynn’s Rangers, if she understood correctly. They’d kill Grik, she had no doubt, and that was a fine thing . . . but is that all she wanted to do? She’d always hoped to serve with Garrett—or her old skipper, Captain Chapelle, again—and Captain Garrett had certainly earned her loyalty on a sandy spit of land on the south Saa-lon coast. Besides, the assignment would take her away from this grimy, bloody hell and all the stark, bloody memories it held. She’d be back where she belonged, on the clean, clear sea, where the unburned ghosts of countless comrades didn’t linger in the fetid fug above the battlefield.
“What is Captain Garrett’s assignment? Donaghey is our oldest ship, besides Walker herself. She has only her sails and wooden sides and cannot survive in the line of battle—particularly against such iron monsters as the Grik now possess.”
Leedom spread his hands. “I don’t know. There’s a lot more secrets now than there used to be. Maybe that’s a good thing, but it takes getting used to.”
Bekiaa considered. Garrett was too senior and too good to waste on Donaghey unless her assignment was an . . . interesting one.
“I will go to Donaghey,” she said, decisive. “I will miss you and worry about you, Lieuten-aant Leedom. You and Gen-er-aal Queen Maraan, since she is the betrothed of my cousin Chack-Sab-At. You have become my brother, and she is as a sister—but you two are the only family I have left in this terrible place. I will go.”
* * *
“Take him to my headquarters at once!” cried General Halik. “Fetch healers—anything you need! General Niwa must not die! I will be there as quickly as I can.” Halik watched as General Orochi Niwa was carried from the damp, flashing field of battle. It should’ve been relatively safe to observe the attack from where they had. The enemy fire would’ve been directed more downward from the raised breastworks bordering his trench, and misses should have been caught by the sucking mud. Even ricochets should’ve been mostly spent. Niwa had persuaded Halik that the captured enemy breechloaders could make deliberate shots at such a range . . . but in the dark? Yet it could only be such a terrible device that shot the neat round hole completely through Niwa’s lower abdomen while he stood commenting on the fight at Halik’s side. Despite his duties, Halik had an almost desperate urge to go with Niwa now.
He paced back and forth in the trees they’d retreated to, watching the Uul draw back from the fight. The professional in him was annoyed that the attack didn’t press the enemy harder, but the budding pragmatist accepted what he’d expected. The attack had served its purpose; it blooded a newly arrived draft of troops from the south, showed him which might benefit from further training and instruction in his new way of war, and provided rations for his army.
“Choosers, divide the warriors I want from the chaff that passes back to the woods,” he instructed the keen-eyed observers he’d appointed the task. They weren’t court-sanctioned Choosers but knew what they were looking for, knew what he wanted.
“And those that turned prey?” one asked. Halik shook his head. “They are fodder. We do not have the luxury now of further evaluations. I know many could be saved, if inspected closely. More waste!” He gurgled a sigh. “But the army must be fed. Choose carefully, but make no exceptions.”
“Of course, Lord General.”
Halik turned to another of his “disciples” who’d stood silent so far, watching.
“General Shlook, move a bit farther west and test the enemy near his anchor on the slope yonder.” Halik pointed at the distant escarpment, invisible in the darkness. “Use another new draft. We will transform this rabble into a real army through attrition if we must, an army better than the Hatchling Host for defense, at need, and even better at attack—when finally we make our decisive blow.”
Shlook hurled himself to the ground at Halik’s feet. “As you command, Lord General!”
“Get up, Shlook!” Halik said patiently but firmly. “You have always been Hij, and I was once Uul—no better than those warriors we waste to sustain us.”
Shlook rose, his crest low in submission. “Yes, Lord General.”
Halik waved him away and turned before Shlook could see his sharp teeth bared in delight. He may be unsure exactly what inspired friendship, but he’d learned precisely what loyalty was and had discovered an amazing method of inspiring it. Some Hij might disdain his humble roots, but most knew only real ability could elevate Uul to Hij at the direct order of the Celestial Mother’s own Chooser. His ability—imperfect as he saw it—was clear to those he commanded. By not disdaining his Hij, by treating them as near equals, he knew most would bare their throats to him. He was proud of this accomplishment, largely because he’d divined it himself. General Niwa had recognized his effort and applauded it, since it was one of the few innovations Niwa hadn’t suggested. Briefly Halik pondered if loyalty wasn’t a major component of friendship, and realized it must be so. Fondness, loyalty, admiration . . . He hurried to follow the warriors that had borne General Niwa away.