As if reading his commander’s thoughts, Pete Alden bellowed at the top of his lungs, the order he gave repeated down the ranks and punctuated with whistle blasts.
“Commence firing!”
Twelve pieces of light artillery bucked and spewed dense clouds of smoke and double loads of canister. Arrows whickered into the darkening sky with a terrible, collective “swoosh.” Untold hundreds of Grik warriors were swept away with as little apparent effort as the command had taken to give. Others screamed in agony and writhed on the ground, clutching wounds or festooned with arrows.
“Independent, fire at will!” Alden shouted, his voice already a little hoarse after the last command and the choking smoke that followed it.
There were a number of distinct thumping, popping sounds beyond the trees from the direction of the initial landing force. Whistling sounds, dozens, scores, like Jenks had never heard, were punctuated by fearsome but smallish blasts that sent gouts of earth into the sky right among the rear of the enemy host. A few of the “mortar bombs,” Reddy had called them, though Jenks had never seen their like, erupted in the trees themselves and sent swarms of splinters into the Grik. The agonized screeching took on a desperate, terrified air.
Then, above it all, there came a roar. It wasn’t like the roar of thunder or the marching surf; it was higher pitched, excited, almost gleeful. Despite its tone, it had a profound, unstoppable, elemental urgency that stirred his most primitive thoughts. In contrast to the increasingly agonized and terrified cacophony of the Grik horde, the roar from beyond the trees was confident, eager, remorseless. It was the sound of doom.
“That’ll be Rolak and Chack!” Gray boomed happily. “They were the anvil. Probably got mighty sick of it too. Now they’re the hammer!”
A large percentage of the Grik, where the mortars still fell, had been transformed from an unstoppable juggernaut into a wild, panic-stricken mass. Jenks looked on in amazement while thousands of Grik scrambled in all directions, slaying one another with wild abandon. Some ran back the way they’d come, smashing into the howling Lemurian troops and Marines that suddenly erupted from the trees. Others raced north or south, toward the jungle or the sea. Some crashed into the rear of the forward element, still charging the Allied line. Battle erupted there, among the Grik, even as the foremost berserkers slammed into the Allied shield wall.
The slaughter was incredible. The mortars stopped falling and the field guns were pulled back to avoid inflicting casualties on the Allied forces now closing on the still-larger Grik army caught between them. The relative sizes of the armies lost all meaning, however, since growing numbers of Grik were now murdering one another. It was insane. The fighting at the shield wall was still wildly intense; the Grik that struck there as a relatively cohesive force still outnumbered Alden’s entire command, but that was when the qualitative difference between the combatants was most plainly demonstrated. Nowhere did the shield wall break. It stood like a monolithic cliff in the face of disorganized breakers, and the killing was remarkably one-sided.
Spears thrust and jabbed over, under, and around the front-rank shields, whose bearers pushed with all their might against the battering Grik. Inexorably, General Rolak’s force swept through the chaos of the Grik rear, killing any who stood even momentarily. Those who fled from between the closing pincers were mostly ignored, but few seemed to realize this and even fewer had the wherewithal or initiative to take advantage of the fact. Within an hour of the first mortar blasts, the jaws of the pincers clamped shut and all that remained of the battle was a prolonged, remorseless butchery.
Captain Reddy must have noticed Jenks’s expression. Perhaps his face was pale?
“Maybe you’re wondering why I don’t put a stop to it?” Matt’s words came in a fierce monotone. “On some level, maybe I still wish I could. But those down there”-he gestured at the dwindling Grik-“won’t quit fighting. Hell, half of them are still killing each other!” He shook his head. “I don’t know how or why they act the way they do, and frankly, that’s not my concern right now. Maybe we’ll know someday. Maybe the prisoners we took at Aryaal will help with that. But right now, we’ll use this clear weakness of theirs against them as often and mercilessly as we can. There may come a time when they get wise and it won’t work anymore.” He looked at Jenks again. “Or maybe you’re wondering if I could stop it?”
Almost without thinking, Jenks jerked a nod.
Matt shrugged. “I don’t know that either. You probably can’t comprehend what’s driven these people, my people, down there, to become what they are from what they were. Mostly, they used to be almost instinctively unaggressive. There were exceptions, but all of them have suffered loss like you can’t imagine. At least, I don’t think you can. Hell, I couldn’t have until I came to this world. Maybe the Rape of Nanking comes close…” He saw Jenks’s uncomprehending blink. “Skip it. Anyway, like you saw at Aryaal, we aren’t fighting a civilized enemy, and this isn’t anything like a civilized war. The very wickedness of our enemy is what’s allowed us to build this army, these soldiers I’m so proud of. I don’t think anything else would have done it.”
Captain Reddy sighed. “ Could I stop them from hacking the life out of every last Grik down there? Maybe. I tried once, you know, and it didn’t work. The Grik give no quarter and never ask for it. I don’t think they know how. Faced with an enemy like that, what do you think? Even if I could make Alden’s troops stop killing, the Grik won’t. I don’t know what made ‘tame’ Griks out of the ones Rasik had, but it didn’t happen in the middle of a fight. Maybe they need time to think things through, and some of the ones who get away will come in later, all peaceable and contrite. For now… I have a rule. It used to be ‘Never give an order you know won’t be obeyed.’ ‘Know’ has become ‘believe,’ but it still works pretty good. That’s my little concession to the gray area of command, and given a choice, I’d much rather err on the side of my people than those monsters down there.”
He looked away from Jenks, back at the dwindling fight. There were cheers now. Cheers of survival, pride, and relief. Cheers for Captain Reddy too. “Besides, to answer the last question you never asked: no. Deep down, I don’t want them to stop. Not after Baalkpan. Not after all I’ve lost.”
A meanie galloped up. Well, “galloped” wasn’t exactly the right word, but it was blowing hard through flared nostrils and would likely have been panting if its jaws weren’t cinched tightly shut. It stared malevolently around. “Cap-i-taan Reddy,” cried the Manilo cavalryman from its back. “General Rolak’s most fervent compliments and affection! He begs to inform you that when they made their charge, another, smaller Grik force was assembling on his flank. He had no choice but to ignore it when this show kicked off. Since it did not attack his rear as he advanced, he fears it may have wind of the blocking force to the west.” The courier motioned toward where the clouds were growing positively malignant. As before, when Matt had seen a growing Strakka, black tendrils had begun to radiate from the dark, brooding core.
Matt looked at Jenks. “After seeing this, are you sure you don’t want to urge Mr. Blair to consider General Maraan’s suggestions a little more carefully?”
Jenks eyed the semidomesticated beast the rider sat upon. “Is there room up there for me?” he demanded.
“Of course.”
Jenks turned to Matt. “Thank you indeed for a most… illuminating experience. I believe I would like to… strongly counsel Lieutenant Blair to do just that. By your leave, Captain Reddy?”
Battle for Singapore
CHAPTER 19
T he mood in Donaghey ’s wardroom was mixed that night. The island of Singapore was theirs, essentially, and almost without exception, all the objectives outlined in the plan had been achieved. Casualties were light, considering the relative sizes of the forces involved, and that was reason enough for most of the commanders to feel proud of and comfortable with the victory.
Lieutenant Blair was anything but comfortable. Not only did he suffer from a painful wound across his ribs, but his losses had not been light at all. Jenks and the Manilo courier astride the meanie had arrived at the left-flank blocking force too late to counsel, cajole, or issue orders, and in contrast to the other leaders present, Blair stared at the bulkhead with a stricken, opium-slacked expression.
His Imperial Marines had stood bravely in the face of the Grik tide that swarmed across them. The two aimed volleys of musket fire they’d managed had forced the charging Grik into Safir Maraan’s shield wall, but meeting that immovable object, they’d swarmed back around it-and over the left flank “secured” by Blair’s Marines. Caught in the process of reloading, and helpless in the face of an enemy the likes of which they’d never faced, the Imperial
