Chack snorted. “You chastise me, when you creep along like a freshly hatched grawfish in the mud!” Chack pointed at Blair’s leg. “You still limp from the wound you had at the Dueling Grounds! You hid that before.”
Blair chuckled and patted his leg. “Actually, this is new. Courtesy of a Dom musket butt.” He shrugged. “Perhaps not entirely new, then. The bugger hit me in the same blasted spot!”
“Do you need someone to look at it?” Selass snapped, her large eyes flashing.
Blair was taken aback, and wondered why she was so angry. Then it hit him. He suddenly remembered the rumors that she and Chack had a “history” of some sort; a history perhaps aggravated by her proximity, continued devotion, and Chack’s betrothal to the distant “General” Safir Maraan.
“Um, no, not at all. It’s just a slight ache.”
“Then, as soon as I’m finished with this foolish person, you can take him off somewhere where he can hurt himself yet again-and I can resume treating others!”
“I just came here to check on the wounded. I never asked…” Chack began.
“Be silent!” Selass ordered. “If you speak again… I will sew your arms together behind your back!”
Chack said nothing more until Selass clipped the thread and daubed the wound with the purplish polta paste that would prevent infection. Even then, he didn’t speak while he snatched his bloody armor from a hook and gathered his weapons. Only once he, Blas, and Blair were outside the tent and among his and Blair’s waiting staffs-and the horses!-did he mutter, “I have always been respectful to that… spiky female. I can’t imagine why she hates me so.” Blas turned her head to hide the blinking she couldn’t stop, but her tail twitched erratically. “What?” Chack demanded angrily.
“Nothing, Major,” Blas replied, hiding her eyes under the rim of her helmet. “I’m just a lowly Marine. Selass- Fris-Ar is almost royalty, as our Imperial allies reckon such things. Her father is the great Keje-Fris-Ar, High Chief of Salissa Home, and ahd-mi-raal of First Fleet! Who am I to grasp the thoughts of one such as she?”
Chack growled with frustration, but went to his horse and patted the animal affectionately. He turned to Blair. “Come, it is time to finish this. The enemy here cannot escape and can no longer harm us.” He remembered the sincere, confused sentiments of an Imperial lieutenant he’d last seen lying facedown in the bloody mud at the bottom of a Dom trench. “Perhaps we are doing murder now,” he murmured, swinging stiffly into the saddle. Then his voice grew louder. “We must at least offer them surrender.”
“ Pity for the enemy?” Blair asked strangely as mal athe others mounted as well. “This from the hero of the Dueling Grounds who was physically dragged from the fighting?”
Chack sighed. “Of course I pity them. Hard as it may be to remember at times, the Doms are people. They’re not born evil. They do evil because they’re taught to, forced to, bred to…” Suddenly, Chack felt heat at the back of his neck, coursing into his head-along with a staggering revelation. “ Bred to evil,” he said again, a picture of Lawrence, cheerfully-and relentlessly-guarding Princess Rebecca from any possible harm springing to his mind. Lawrence wasn’t Grik… but he was as much like them as Imperials were to Doms-or the remnants of the New Britain Company. Lawrence was no more different from the Grik than the evil Rasik-Alcas had been from Lord Rolak, his beloved Safir, or all the good People he knew. “Maker above,” he whispered, “let us hurry and see if the enemy will let us save them.”
“Very well,” agreed Blair. “We must deal with them at any rate, and the less ammunition we expend, the better. The bulk of the enemy still infests New Dublin, across the Sperrin range. We must quickly prepare to threaten them there if the rest of the plan is to succeed-and every mortar bomb, roundshot, and musket ball we fire, not to mention the food to sustain us, must be brought over the Wiklow range from Cork, or all the way down the Waterford road from Bray.”
The group started down the central avenue of the mostly undamaged town, moving through groups of people whose reactions to seeing them ranged from exuberant joy to resentful silence, depending on whom they’d supported. The latter were few, at least they appeared to be, and there were cheers when they reached the city center, already guarded by Marines, and Chack ordered the Company flag, the virtual banner of New Ireland, cut down from the pole in front of the Director’s mansion. After that, he and the rest of his entourage rode purposefully on, toward the sound of the guns.
CHAPTER 15
USS Maaka-Kakja Southwest of New Wales
C aptain Lelaa-Tal-Cleraan angrily slapped the message form against her left hand, and Sandra Tucker looked at her with concern. She and Princess Rebecca, as well as several other Maaka-Kakja officers, had gathered on the bridge, forward of the comm shack to catch the latest news.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know… The issue on New Ireland grows more confusing by the hour!” She jerked her head to the side. “What seemed well in hand and going according to plan has apparently spun into the ‘pot,’ I fear.”
“What’s up?” asked Irvin Laumer.
“Yes, please tell us!” pleaded the princess.
“Yess! Goddamn!” echoed Petey-more crassly-peering around Rebecca’s head from his perch on her back. Nobody paid his outbursts any attention anymore.
Lelaa glanced at the anxious group, all of whom she cared a great deal about.
“Majors Chack and Blair have reached their mountain pass objective and hold a good position on the ridge south of New Dublin. Sor-Lomaak and Salaama-Na, flagship of the bombardment element, heaps satisfactory abuse on the harbor defenses… That much remains according to projections. But those defenses have not weakened in response to Chack’s presence in their rear-and Dominion forces continue to sprout in… unexpected places. Apparently, there were far more troops at Belfast and Easky than ever expected, and they’ve counterattacked. The beachhead at Bray has been overrun, and the one at Cork is sorely pressed. An army-presumably the same that recaptured Bray, now marches south toward Waterford and threatens Chack’s rear!” She sighed. “And now Salaama-Na begins to run short of ammunition-far in advance of the more intense covering bombardment that was planned.”
“One would almost suspect that the enemy is as well versed on Major Chack’s plan as we are,” Brassey observed quietly.
“Indeed,” agreed Lelaa.
“Somebody in the Imperial command must’ve squealed,” Irvin snarled. “That’s the only answer. They had to know what our guys meant to do before they even did it. How else would they know to place troops just so, and keep them quiet until the right-worst-time?”
“And where are they all coming from?” Sandra demanded. “The troops that took refuge there after the battle for New Scotland might account for the numbers Chack reported facing, but not many more than that.. .. There had to be more already there, or they’re still coming from somewhere else nearby!”
“But where?” Lelaa murmured. She stepped to the chart table and peered down at it. Most Lemurians still called the charts “scrolls” even though those used by the Navy had none of the religious, cultural, or historic passages recorded by the prophet, Siska-Ta. It didn’t matter. The term was almost interchangeable in the Lemurian-English patois that had begun to evolve-and Siska-Ta had never drawn scrolls of this region, anyway. Lelaa gauged the distance to New Ireland. They were just close enough to launch an air attack on New Dublin, but the planes would never make it back. They could set down at New Glasgow on New Scotland, however, and if “Oil Can” prepositioned fuel there as they were supposed to…
“Pass the word for Lieutenant Reddy and Colonel Shinya,” Lelaa said. “Reddy is COFO, for all practical purposes, though he’s only once now flown a ‘Naancy.’ He’s formed and organized the wing even better than I expected. No doubt… different from the way Colonel Mallory or Captain Tikker would have it, but the inexperienced chaos is at an end. I’ll see what he has to say. As for Colonel Shinya… it seems we will need to land his troops. I would like his views on that.”
Shinya and Orrin Reddy joined the group-with Dennis Silva and “Larry the Lizard.” Lawrence apparently suspected something was up, because he came dressed in his Sa’aaran battle kit, to everyone’s surprise. Oddly, Orrin and Silva had grown close over the weeks. That probably had to do with Orrin’s youth and exuberance as much as anything. He was built much like his cousin, and though he’d begun to “put some meat back on his bones”
