hate to be in a confined place like this valley when they were here! I thought it was bad on the Sand Spit when we were downwind of them.”
Flynn’s brow furrowed. “Stink wouldn’t be the worst thing about being in a place like this!” he said, looking up at the wooded flanks of the mountains. “I wish we had comm down in here.” He glanced at his watch. “Another twenty minutes or so before our guardian angels check on us,” he added, referring to the four-plane flight tasked to watch over the long, winding column. “Anything from the flank pickets?”
“Just Grik… excrement, Colonel,” said Bekiaa. Her tail swished. “They abandoned a lot of their artillery, though. Orders from Colonel Grisa of the Ninth Aryaal behind us is not to destroy the guns, we might use them. Even if we don’t, they’ll certainly be easier to salvage on their carriages.”
“True.” Flynn rubbed his jaw. “Look, maybe I’m paranoid, but it wouldn’t be the first time the flyboys missed something. They have to key on movement like the rest of us, and it’s a lot harder to see when you’re moving yourself.”
“The Third Maa-ni-lo Caav, under Cap-i-taan Saachic, scouted the whole area carefully this morning, and their… me-naaks did not alert,” Saaran reminded him thoughtfully, “but with the scent so thick, they may not have.” They used a vaguely similar, if smaller-and much more agreeable-version of “meanies” on the Great South Island to track game, and Saaran was familiar with them. They weren’t “pets” per se, but they did respond to affection and familiarity. Saaran respected the larger beasts’ capabilities but had no desire to befriend one.
“Yeah, but this valley is just too good a place to put cork in the bottle-hell, the Grik were here!” He shrugged. “I feel sorta like I’m on the conn tower of the old S-19 in the bottom of a big trough with all the hatches open.”
“I agree,” Bekiaa said, a little edgy. “As you say, something stinks here-besides the waste. But the pickets move all the way to the crests”-she pointed north and south-“and see no movement.”
“Hmm. I hate to string the poor guys out that far, where those damn Griklets might gang up on ’em, but signal the pickets to drop over the crest-in pairs-and see what they can over there.”
“We might not hear shots, or even see the puffs of smoke,” Saaran reminded him. “They certainly won’t be able to signal us visually.”
“Then they’ll just have to haul their asses to where we or other pickets can see or hear ’em if they spot anything,” Billy said. “Pass the word back to Grisa that he might want to do the same.” He looked back as far as he could see. His and Grisa’s regiments were fully committed to the valley now, but the rest of the division wasn’t yet. Was that good or bad? Both the Amalgamated and the 9th Aryaal were well trained, and the 9th was a hardened, veteran force. If this was a trap, could two thousand stand against whatever might be assembled against them? It occurred to him with a chill that if his instincts were correct, the Grik thought they could handle the entire division!
“Okay,” he said, a little tentatively, “I want another runner to suggest to Grisa that our two regiments go from column into line, act like we smell a rat. If the Grik are up to something, maybe that’ll prod them into showing us what it is. If they attack down one of these slopes, we can funnel the follow-on regiments in behind our lines.”
“What if they attack down both mountains?” Bekiaa asked.
“Then we’re screwed… but maybe the rest of the division can block the valley behind us, and we can retreat back to them.” He shrugged. “Prob’ly nothin’, anyway, just a superstitious old pigboater!”
They continued to advance a short distance until Grisa’s reply arrived. Apparently, he was superstitious too and fully endorsed the scheme. If nothing happened, the worst that would occur was perhaps an hour’s delay in their advance.
“Just a few minutes until the planes,” Flynn said, as much to himself as to Bekiaa who remained beside him. “If we do poke a hornet’s nest, maybe they’ll see it before it hits us.” He raised his voice. “Rangers!” he yelled, followed by other shouts up and down the column, crying out to their various companies or batteries. “Halt! Action left! Column into line by files…” He waited while his command was relayed and the appropriate drum cadence rumbled. “Execute!” (He’d always thought it was stupid to punctuate a command with the word “march”- particularly when troops were already marching.)
Despite the rocky, uneven ground, NCOs scampered out to the left, looking back at the troops, and the column of Lemurians that had been marching four abreast transformed into a battle line facing southwest, two ranks deep.
“Batteries! Action left!”
The “Gun ’Cats” wheeled their palkas to the right until their pieces were even with the infantry line; then the beasts were halted while the long, twin shafts were unhooked from either side of them. The animals were then moved to what was now the “rear,” where they were joined by more palkas pulling similarly hitched ammunition limbrs. The new twelve-pounders had single, “stock trail” carriages that hitched directly to the limbers, which were in turn drawn by a pair of palkas, but they’d been considered too heavy for the rough mountain trails.
In moments, thirty-six guns in six batteries were crewed and pointed up the slope of the mountainous ridge to the south, and two thousand Lemurians from the 1st Amalgamated and 9th Aryaal stood prepared for battle. Colonel Flynn studied the crest through his binoculars, but so far, there’d been no response to their maneuver. In the sudden near silence, he heard the sound of approaching planes.
“It’s about damn time!” he said as the four-ship formation swooped low over what had been the head of the column, and obviously seeing its deployment, banked left and climbed to investigate the flank. “This is probably all for nothing,” he admitted sheepishly to Bekiaa. “Everybody always says I give those Grik bastards too much credit for brains, but I spent some time talking to Rolak’s pet, Hij Geeky… or whatever.” He swatted at a mosquito. “He ain’t a genius, and he’s weird as hell, but he’s no dummy, you know? Anyway, maybe I’m bein’ a dope, but I didn’t last this long…” He stopped. A tiny, distant puff of smoke drifted up out of the trees; then another. “Pickets, I bet,” he murmured. Several more puffs appeared, but they never heard the sound of the shots over the diminishing engine noises. The planes must have seen as well, because they banked further, aiming for the crest of the mountain just west of Flynn’s Rangers. Barely an instant after the “Nancys” cleared that crest, the entire top of the mountain seemed to explode as hundreds of gouts of flame stabbed upward, shrouded in dense gray-white smoke. Two of the planes instantly crumpled and fell. One spiraled down, out of control, and painted a smear of orange fire and greasy black smoke on the skyline. A single ship staggered on, trailing smoke.
“Sonuva bitch!” Billy yelled, just as the thunderous reports of the enemy weapons began to reach them. They would echo in the valley for some time. “I wish for once I didn’t have to be right about how shitty a thing can turn! What were those things?”
“I would say they were either cannon on the extreme opposite slope, or they have something similar to our mortars for firing a heavy load of canister straight up. Either way, the range cannot be great,” Saaran said.
“Great enough,” Flynn seethed. “I hope that one plane is able to report, because whatever did that wasn’t here this morning. The Cav would’ve seen them.” The sporadic musket fire from the retreating pickets was diminishing. Either they were breaking contact-or being wiped out. “And whatever the hell else is up there all of a sudden.” He looked around.
“Colonel!” Bekiaa suddenly cried, pointing at the mountains to the north. There were small puffs of smoke there as well!
“That… ain’t good, huh? I bet this is how Custer felt.”
“How is that, Colonel?” Saaran asked.
“Like pukin’.”
“Who is Custer?” asked Bekiaa.
“A dead idiot,” Flynn said. Suddenly, the thunder echoing in the valley took on a different, more strident tone, with the power and malevolence of a typhoon sea. He’d heard this thunder before, just prior to the Grik assault on the south wall of Baalkpan. It was the mind-numbing, terrifying sound of thousands of Grik, roaring, screaming, pounding weapons on their shields. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “Except we ain’t gonn be dead idiots, see? Not if it kills us! We might still wind up dead-and I can live with that-so long as we’re dead heroes! I didn’t quit my sugar boat and join the Army to be remembered as the biggest military dunce of the war!”
“What shall we do?” Saaran asked, thrown a little by Flynn’s contradictory comments.
“Rangers!” Flynn roared in response. “From line into column to your left… execute!” Immediately, the nervous and confused, but motivated troops, re-formed their column, facing the direction they’d come.
Bekiaa had echoed the order like all the other company commanders. Technically, Saaran was senior, but here on land, they both knew who was really in charge of “their” company. She looked at Flynn. “What are we
