“Of course.”
“Tell him if he can manage to arrive and position his troops within the next one, perhaps as much as two handspans of the sun, I believe I can promise him exactly the battle-the ‘test’-he seeks!”
The Grik did nothing for the next hour, but horns continued sounding in the jungle. All the vegetation except the larger, harder trees in front of the fighting position had been sheared away by the coming and going of the Grik horde, and the canister that had churned all the vines, small trees, and low-hanging branches to mulch. Equally mulched were the countless Grik dead heaped at the base of the breastworks and scattered on the ground as far as the eye could penetrate into the once dense foliage. Many had already been buried by the falling leaves. Visibility was good now, with the sun well up in the midmorning sky. Scattered cottony clouds had begun to form. Dowden continued a desultory barrage, a round or two every quarter hour, as if to goad the Grik into remembering and concentrating on this supposedly exposed flank.
Garrett reported that the “city” was secure at last and his cavalry was busy chasing those who had fled toward the mouths of the Irrawaddy. Behind them, Garrett dug in beyond the city with a Baalkpan regiment while the rest of his troops went to bolster his connection with the center line and reinforce Queen Maraan. A few squads still roamed the city, torching anything that would burn. Most important, Pete Alden finally arrived at Rolak’s position with eight hundred of the 1st Marines. He was breathing hard, but not exhausted after his slog through the calfhigh sand. He’d lost a few Marines to straggling and injuries along the way, but those who made it were ready to fight. Company commanders and NCOs were already deploying the Marines when Pete went to find Rolak.
Rolak saluted him when he appeared at the command post and Pete waved back.
“I could use a drink,” Pete said, grinning.
“Water?”
“Not unless it’s ship’s water, boiled-or maybe mixed with something stronger. The last thing I need right now is the screamers. I still have my canteen, so something stronger would be nice.”
“Orderly,” Rolak called, “bring chilled beer for the general.” He huffed apologetically. “I fear ‘chilled’ will be a relative term, General Alden.”
“Anything below eighty degrees will be plenty refreshing, Lord Rolak. Could you send a few water buckets to my Marines so they can drink and refill their bottles?”
“Of course. Colonel Grisa?”
Grisa called one of his own orderlies to delegate a detail.
Pete gulped the sweet Lemurian beer that was brought to him. “My God, but that hits the spot! War’s getting downright civilized around here.”
“It was not so ‘civilized’ a short while ago, I assure you. We held well enough, but it was costly.”
Pete nodded grimly. “Sorry about that. You did swell.” He shook his head. “Logistics was a goose-screw in a sack. We have to sort that out.”
“We must, or those who died here today will have done so for nothing.”
“Not nothing. We’ve already learned a lot. I hope we learn a lot more. Weird fight, though. Going by what Captain Garrett’s faced and what you’ve been facing here, it’s almost like we’ve got two entirely different Grik tribes.”
Rolak nodded. “Yes, I ‘got the word.’ The ones he faced were… less healthy, it seems.”
“Yeah. You had it tougher. Glad we got here during a lull. You think they’ll hit the same place?”
“I am as certain of it as one can be about such things,” Rolak replied. “Our scouts, and those attached to the Queen, say they are massing everything that faced us both into a single concerted effort against us here. The fighting was fiercest here, so they must believe us the weakest.” The grin that stretched across his teeth was feral. It faded. “I do wish Salissa ’s planes would arrive and confirm that, however.”
“Another hour or so, according to the report I heard from Queen Maraan’s command post.”
Rolak nodded. “We heard the same. We can hear the planes themselves report, but they cannot yet hear us.”
Pete pointed at the aerial. “Not enough antenna, I guess. Too many trees too. Too much interference. The ships can talk to ’em.”
“That will have to do.”
“Maybe it’ll get better when they’re closer. It’ll be tough coordinating everything through the ships.”
Grik horns brayed in the woods, interrupting their conversation. Many horns. More than before, Rolak thought.
Pete finished his beer and wiped his lips. “Here we go again,” he said, turning for the front.
“Do you mean to stand in the line?” Rolak asked accusingly.
“Yep. I have to, to see what happens.”
“Unfair!” Rolak protested. “You ordered me to stay back and I spent the entire last fight strolling about with nothing to do!”
“That’s your job. Normally, it’d be mine too, but I have to see this.”
“Then perhaps I ‘have to see’ it too!”
“Well… what if I get knocked off? You know the plan. You can still carry it out.”
“Everyone here knows the plan, General Aal-den. But if you are ‘knocked off,’ who else here has my experience in war? Who else would be better to observe the enemy reaction than I?”
Pete shook his head and shifted the sling of his Springfield. “Aww, hell. C’mon!”
The Lemurian “phalanx,” as Captain Reddy had helped create it, worked much like its historical predecessors on that other earth. No physical activity ever conceived could possibly be as exhausting as prolonged hand-to-hand combat over a shield wall. The tactic was therefore designed to allow periodic rotation of combatants from the front rank to the rear, where they might manage a little rest until they started forward in the rotation again. Ideally. The trouble was, Grik assaults were usually so relentless and chaotic, there was rarely a “good” time to rotate troops. In this war, the ’Cats had learned to do it by “feel” and fleeting opportunity more than any other way. The system worked after a fashion, but some fought, by necessity, until they were nearly dead from fatigue, and that often resulted in them being completely dead. The fighters in the front ranks relied on the spearmen behind them to give them the break they needed, and woe was he or she who did not learn spearwork well, because in this business, what went around came around… literally.
Rotation must have been fairly steady in this fight, Pete thought, looking at the blood-spattered troops. “Okay, fellas,” he shouted, his words echoed by NCOs down the length of the line. He always used the term “fellas” inclusively, whether his troops were male or female. Here, with B’mbaadans and Aryaalans predominating, there were still few females in their ranks, although that was changing. It was impossible to ignore the fact that Pete Alden’s Marine Corps ran about half and half, and it was composed of volunteers from every “nation” in the Alliance. It was equally clear that even the best-trained, most-conservative Aryaalan regiment would never want to tangle with the Marines. Queen Maraan’s Six Hundred were on a par with them, but it also accepted females now. Nobody was really happy with that arrangement, least of all Pete and the human destroyermen, but the Baalkpans, Manilos, and various sea folk insisted on it. It was their way. It also worked.
“You’ve had a tough fight and killed the bastards like proper devils,” Pete continued over the growing tumult of the Grik horns as the enemy prepared for its next attack, “but this time we’re going to play something new. At my command, the first and second ranks will remain in place. Third and fourth ranks will step to the rear, behind the First Marines!” He waited while the order was relayed. “Execute!”
The two rearward ranks, gore-streaked spears on their shoulders, about-faced and marched through the waiting ranks of Marines. “First Marines! Take positions… March!”
The two ranks of Marines that stretched the entire length of the line, except for the most extreme right, stepped forward in near unison, their blue kilts and largely unblemished white leather armor a stark contrast to the troops they’d replaced.
“Load!” Pete roared.
Eight hundred of the new muzzle-loading Baalkpan Arsenal muskets were removed from shoulders and placed butt down on the ground. Almost in unison, each Marine shifted his or her black leather cartridge box around, closer to their front, and proceeded to load their weapons by silent but endlessly practiced detail. Finely woven, almost silk cartridges made from the webs of some kind of long-bodied spider were handled and torn open with sharp teeth-the Alliance still didn’t have any real paper-and the gunpowder within was poured down eight hundred 36-inch barrels.
