observer’s seat and was trying to claw his way up the oilstreaked fuselage. Kari wasn’t moving. Somehow, Fred managed to climb high enough to get the Lemurian by the long hair on her head and drag her from the plane just as the overheated engine burst into flames. Almost immediately, the fuel tank directly above it ignited with a searing whoosh and a mushroom of orange flame and black smoke. The right wing folded and the fuselage rolled on its side, and in what seemed a matter of seconds, the entire plane was consumed by fire, its charred skeleton drawn beneath the waves by the weight of the engine.
There in the water, Fred Reynolds was stroking mightily toward the oncoming boat, one arm clawing at the water, the other trying to hold Kari’s head above it. “C’mon!” urged someone on the bridge. A dull moan reached their ears and a huge splash erupted a few dozen yards off the port bow. Another splash arose a quarter of a mile short.
“Bow guns-‘chasers,’ from the Doms,” announced Minnie. “Big ones, say the lookout. The first one prob’ly lucky close.”
“Range?”
“Four t’ousand.”
Frankie glanced back at the sea to port and saw with relief that the whaleboat had reached the aviators. “The main battery will commence firing,” he said grimly. “And pass the word: ‘lucky close’ ain’t an option today. We have to keep the range on those bastids an’ tear ’em up from a distance.” He gestured back toward Scapa Flow. “Our job is to hold ’em back until the cavalry gets here. Like Reynolds, we’ll concentrate on the transports if we can, and stay away from the heavies. As many guns as those things have, they don’t have to be good to shred us, just ‘lucky close,’ see?”
The new salvo bell clattered on the bulkhead behind him.
Matt and the others were running, breathing hard. They’d managed to stay together, however, and even Bradford was keeping up. The streets were eerily quiet and vacant. Matt wondered if the inhabitants were sitting things out, or if they’d already responded to the Governor-Emperor’s call to arms. For some reason, he didn’t think that was the case in this district. He worried about snipers. They turned onto the street dominated by the embassy of the Holy Dominion and were met by a scattered volley that felled one of their Marines and shattered masonry at the corner behind them. Gray emptied a twenty-round stick into the group, sending all but one of the six men sprawling. The other man stood there, stunned, until Matt shot him with his Springfield as they trotted past. Stites had the BAR again, but he was low on magazines for it too. They reached the iron-bound door, and Matt immediately inverted his rifle and drove the butt hard against it. The door didn’t budge.
“God damn it!” he raged.
“Stay cool, Skipper,” Gray said. “I got a treatment for this.” He reached in a satchel and pulled out a grenade, a “real” one, made in the USA.
“I didn’t know you had those,” Matt said accusingly. “We could have used them!”
“I was savin’ ’em for if things got serious,” Gray explained innocently. “Bash in the peephole!”
Matt redirected the butt of his rifle and Gray pulled the pin on the grenade and dropped it inside the door. There was a muffled ba-rump inside, followed by screams.
“What good did that do?” Stites demanded. “We still can’t get in!”
“After the day I’ve had, it was pretty fun,” Gray said. “Otherwise
…” He fished in his pocket. “… Spanky gave me this really swell rubber band! Just look at this thing!” he said, displaying the gift. “Don’t know where he got it, but it’s a peach. I was gonna make me a slingshot for… Anyway, everybody get back!”
He took another grenade, and looping the rubber band around it, hung the little bomb from the top left hinge on the big door. Making sure everyone was clear, he yanked the pin and ran. The spoon flew and the grenade bounced up and down a couple of times.
Blam!
Grenades make poor breaching charges, but the high-explosive inside made short work of the brittle iron hinge. The door trembled, then fell diagonally outward onto the street.
“C’mon!” Matt yelled.
In the grand scheme of such things, compared to other fights Chack had participated in, the Battle of the Imperial Dueling Grounds was a relatively small affair. It was big by Imperial standards, at least as far as land battles were concerned, but it wasn’t even close to something like Aryaal, Singapore, and certainly not Baalkpan in terms of scope. The Dominion had landed and secreted away perhaps a thousand troops in warehouses and an abandoned barracks outside of Leith, and the conspirators had considered that number more than sufficient to overwhelm New Scotland’s small, dispersed, Marine garrison from behind Scapa Flow’s defenses, especially when coupled with the overwhelming surprise that Reed and Don Hernan had achieved. It didn’t work that way.
The Lemurian shields made a big difference. For a while. The Dominion front ranks were decimated by those first volleys, but they had greater numbers to start with. Chack and Blair’s experiments with the shields paid off, teaching them that the dense hardwood-backed bronze implements would turn a musket ball if held at an angle, and the shields were battered and streaked with smears of lead, while the rear ranks delivered a withering fire. The front ranks suffered terribly from the beating they were taking, painfully flayed by spattered fragments of balls, stunned by incessant impacts, and even struck by balls that skated in or found a gap. The shields could take only so much, however, and they began to be pierced or fall apart under the hammering.
“Second rank! Take shields where you can,” Lieutenant Blair ordered, knowing Chack would never do it. “First rank, fall back to the rear!”
Chack spared him a thankful glance. Less than thirty Lemurian Marines were able to obey.
O’Casey appeared, unfired pistols still dangling around his neck. He was covered with blood, caused by dozens of splinter wounds. “This is the damnedest thing there ever was,” he gasped.
“It is quite like a duel itself, is it not?” Blair asked. His hat was gone now, replaced by a bloody rag. “A most appropriate setting, I suppose.”
“It is stupid,” Chack growled. “General Alden would not approve.” He shrugged. “But I don’t know what else to do. We cannot maneuver here, and there is no cover other than the stands-and we can’t reach them without exposing ourselves. Stupid! All we can do is stand here, trading blows like fools.”
“Where’s Captain Reddy, an’ Jenks?” O’Casey asked.
A ball caromed off Chack’s steel American helmet, almost knocking him down. He shook his head and resumed his erect pose. “Stupid,” he repeated, looking almost desperately around for some inspiration. “If only we had a single gun!”
“Just be glad theirs are silent,” Blair said. He looked at O’Casey. “Captain Reddy has gone for Mr. Reed. Jenks seeks the Governor-Emperor!”
“Then I must assist one or the other,” O’Casey said. “I’m of no further use here.”
“Nooo, Mr. O’Casey,” Chack said. “Untrue. Your collection of pistols might soon be of great use. I weary of this mutual mauling! I ask myself what I would do if those… people were Grik, and I see only one course that will decide this before both sides are annihilated! Lieutenant Blair? I see the enemy has not fixed bayonets. Why is that?”
“Why…” Blair paused. “Well, they can’t.”
“They do have them?”
“Yes, but they’re a different style. A type of plug bayonet. They insert them into their muzzles and they are quite effective, but their shooting is over then. They usually have to drive them out. If they’d affixed them before now, they’d have had to charge, or stand and be shot to pieces.”
“Like we are doing?” Chack practically roared. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I-” Blair was confused.
“Listen to me, Lieutenant Blair. You must trust me. We are about to lose a lot of troops, your men mostly, but then we will shortly end this fight. Do you believe me?”
“I… uh…” Blair suddenly remembered the last time he’d disregarded the advice of a Lemurian commander. Safir Maraan had tried to warn him at Singapore that his tactics simply didn’t apply. His command had been virtually eradicated that day, and he’d miserably blamed himself ever since. He’d also come to realize that these… creatures, these Lemurians, knew a lot more about pitched battles on land than he did. “Yes, I do, Captain Sab-At,” he said
