pickets to maintain their positions and keep tabs on the enemy advance as long as they could, Alden and Faask slitherethoght='1em'›
Queen Maraan awaited them, anxious for their news. “Is it true?” she hissed. Pete and Haakar-Faask both nodded, and her eyes turned to slits. “What will we do?”
“We must keep you safe, Your Majesty,” Faask replied.
“How? Would you have me slink off into the jungle, dig a hole, and crawl into it?” She gestured around at the refugees, huddled under makeshift shelters against the rain that had begun to fall. “What of them?”
“With respect, Majesty-” Faask began.
“No! I will not skulk around, leaving my people to be slaughtered!” She stared levelly at Alden and Faask. “We will fight! All of us! You two are probably the greatest generals this world has ever known. In different ways, perhaps, since you come from different backgrounds, but that should give us an insurmountable advantage, not a disadvantage. Surely, between you, you can devise a plan that will, if not give us victory, at least deny it to them! All we need is time, my friends. Our allies will not abandon us.” She grinned. “We are too important, are we not?”
“But they are simply too many!” Faask protested. “They outnumber us fifteen to one!”
Alden scratched his beard. “Yeah,” he agreed, “if they were all in one place, that would be true.” He knelt to the soggy ground and swept the leaves and brush away, revealing a bare spot of damp earth. The rain was already tapering off-another short squall-and he selected a small, pointed stick. After he scratched a rough outline of the island, he drew a line across the top. “This is the main Grik force. There’re many of them, but they’re stretched across the entire width of the island. If we mass our forces here”-he pointed to the south-“we can strike their right flank and probably have numerical superiority, at least locally. We hit ’em like maniacs and break through into their rear. Even against a ‘normal’ enemy, that’d leave them dangerously exposed. With any luck, they’ll go nuts-like we’ve seen them do before-and we roll up their flank, killing as we go.” He grinned. “We might even set the whole army to flight, but probably not. Sooner or later our guys’ll get tired and the attack’ll run out of steam. That’s when they’ll hit back.”
“I agree so far,” Faask said, “but what good will that do? It will be a glorious end, but it will not protect the queen.”
“Sure it will, because we don’t let our ‘army’ run out of steam. We pull back to here”-he pointed again with his stick-“where we take a breather while the Grik center turns to attack us on their right. Where we were. When they do that, we hit ’em again, on their new left flank!”
Faask was silent for a moment, studying the impressions in the dirt. “But that’s… brilliant!”
Pete grinned. “Of course it is! We just have to make sure our coordination works like clockwork, and we have signals that work and are obeyed instantly.”
Faask stroked his own beard. Alden was more used to the sea folk, who generally kept their facihe south-“ready. It would be the greatest, most audacious victory of the age!” He looked at Alden with renewed respect, then frowned. “But what of the blocking force? Our warriors will be exhausted, even if we are successful.”
Alden gestured toward the sea. “It’ll take them a day to get their shit together. We know where they are, but they don’t have a clue about us. They’ll figure it out pretty quick, but by then we’ll already be headed toward the main force. That ought to confuse them. I figure we’ll have a day or so to rest before they catch up, and they’ll be at least as spread out as the first bunch by then.”
“And we do it again!” Faask shouted triumphantly.
“And then we do it again,” Alden confirmed.
Queen Maraan coughed. “All very inspiring, noble generals. I am impressed. I knew you could do it, and it seems an outstanding plan. .. only remember the single greatest lesson I have learned from both of you: no plan may ever be entirely relied upon, once the battle has begun!”
CHAPTER 7
Warm sunlight filtered through the delicately woven curtains draped across the doorway to the balcony, and Matthew Reddy opened his eyes and blinked. He’d slept late again, he realized with chagrin. That was two days in a row. All his life he’d risen with the sun-or before-but lately… He shook his head Wand rubbed his eyes. Rolling off the great, mushy cushion that served as a mattress, he stood and walked to a water basin on a table near the door. He submerged his face for the count of ten, then rubbed it briskly with his hands. Rinsing, he parted the annoyingly long hair and combed it from left to right across his scalp, and looked intently into the polished silver mirror above the basin.
“Starting to look like a hobo,” he growled, remembering the ones he used to see wandering around the stockyard train station when he was a kid. “Acting like one too. Waking up when I feel like it-damn, I bet it’s nearly oh eight hundred!” He glanced at his watch: 0750. He frowned, shaking his head, then looked at the mirror again. His hair was halfway down his ears, and starting to curl a little against his collar in the back. It also had a little gray in it all of a sudden. The stubble on his face seemed as much salt as pepper, and he was only thirty-three. He needed to hit Juan up for a haircut, he thought with a grimace, but then, with a twinge of satisfaction, he remembered he still controlled his razor, at least.
He shaved as carefully as he could. Most of his old Asiatic Fleet destroyermen had long since ceased shaving. He wouldn’t force them to, with razors so scarce. The main reason he still did it himself was that the men expected it. He’d kept his face clean shaven, to the best of his ability, throughout all the trials they’d come through together, and even though it was a little thing after all, sometimes it was the little things that made all the difference in the end. It was a symbol of continuity they all could cling to, even him. It was a stubborn statement that not everything they knew before the Squall was lost forever. The skipper still shaved his face. He had to admit it was a rather pathetic affectation, but they’d lost almost everything else.
Some of the indiscriminate heaps were deposited by creatures he’d never seen before. One looked a little like a brontosaurus from a distance, although it was smaller, and had a shorter-if beefier and more muscular-neck, and a much shorter tail. The head was larger, with short, palmated antlers. It was also covered with fur-real fur-and Bradford excitedly insisted the things were herbivorous marsupials, of all things. Matt wondered why no one ever imported them to Baalkpan; they were obviously more sensible draft animals than the ubiquitous brontosaurus. Probably smarter and more biddable as well, from what he’d seen. He found himself wishing for some to pull his light artillery pieces. Perhaps they could even be ridden, although he hadn’t seen anyone doing it. They were called “Paalkas,” but Silva had immediately dubbed them “pack-mooses.”
There was an animal the Maa-ni-los did ride, but he’d seen only a couple. They looked like long-legged crocodiles that ran on all fours, as they should, but their legs were shaped more like a dog’s. They ran like dogs too, and the only time he’d seen them, they bore troops in Saan-Kakja’s livery on some apparent errand. The crowds gave them a wide berth, and Matt noticed their jaws were always strapped and buckled tightly shut. The ’Cats called them one thing, he couldn’t remember, and Courtney Bradford had made up another name he couldn’t pronounce. Whatever they were, he’d have to find out more about them.
It was all very fascinating, but profoundly frustrating as well. Strangely, he liked this Manila a lot better than the old, in a way, but he was becoming almost frantically anxious to complete his mission and get back. He missed Sandra terribly-missed everybody-and there was still the iron fish to consider. Each day they spent here, dithering over details and placating the endless stream of dignitaries and counselors, was one less they could spend looking for it. And another thing was troubling him too: they hadn’t heard a peep out of Baalkpan in days.
“Mornin’, Skipper.”
Matt noticed that Silva had joined him during his reverie. The big gunner’s mate had no official standing as far as the diplomatic mission went, other than that he had, somewhere along the line, taken personal responsibility for Captain Reddy’s welfare. He’d stepped into Chief Gray’s self-appointed role as Matt’s senior armsman, and he commanded a detail of enlisted humans and Lemurians who’d volunteered for the duty-knowing full well that the man they were bound to protect didn’t always make it easy. Like that of Juan Marcos, their job had just… evolved. Unlike Juan, the “Captain’s Guard” had become an official posting at the urging of Keje and Adar. Silva knew the job was Gray’s whenever he was able to resume it, but he’d have been protecting the captain anyway, and he’d been
