assume a large enemy force is nearby.” He rubbed his eyes. “Maybe they were expecting us to stick to the road and we took ’em by surprise. The caretakers here probably weren’t fighting Grik, anyway.” He looked at his orderly. “Forget that part, write this: “Recommend Air Corps keep a lookout for similar sites. Placement may give clues about enemy plans.” He looked at Bekiaa. “They can’t count on us or each other for rations until after the fight, and they’ll damn sure need something to tide them over if they want to gather up anything big enough to face us.” He paused a moment, then nodded at the orderly.
“Run on. Get that to the Division runners as quick as you can, then get back here.”
“Yes, sur!”
“You think they eat these things all the time?” Bekiaa asked, gesturing at the pen. “Scuttlebutt says the flyboys been seein’ dino herds on the high plains we’re headin’ for, specially round water, but nothing in the woods or coastal plains.”
“Maybe the Grik live mostly down here, but herd these things down from up there. Who knows? Maybe they raise ’em and just let ’em graze up high.” Flynn waved at the trees. “Flyboys can’t see crap down in these woods from above. There could be a million Grik within five miles of the damn road at any point.”
“But… no dino-cows were in Maa-draas.”
“Maybe not, but I bet if somebody looked again, they’d find pens where they’d been.” He shook his head. “Or maybe they just carted in the meat. Killing something that big in the middle of a city might drive all the Grik there wild!”
“Then what about the bones? We should have found bones.”
“I may not be Courtney Bradford, but I know a thing or two. There’s lots of industrial uses for ground or powdered bone-and, hell, maybe they eat that too. The point is, if I’m right, the Air Corps should be able to tell us soon.” He looked at the pen again, then back at the sergeant. “Form a detail to feed and water those damn things, then tell Captain Saachic some of his cav ’Cats are going to have to learn to be cowboys. I want them all herded to the rear. Whether we can eat ’em or not, I’m not leaving them here for the Grik.”
The next morning, the Rangers returned to the road near a narrow lake just west of 3rd Division and the rest of Safir’s II Corps. They were moving to shoot the gap through a rocky, wooded pass bordered by a swift, steeply falling river and high, jagged crags. They were joined by the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Marines, as Flynn had requested, and were screened by Captain Saachic’s company of the 6th Maa-ni-la Cavalry. An hour after daybreak, they proceeded to do what they’d been doing all along: leaping forward to establish a defensive position to support the 1st Sular (this time), and another company of the 6th. The difference was that Flynn’s leap would also be a reconnaissance in force at the end of a longer limb, and the 1st Sular and 6th Maa-ni-la would follow almost immediately. In the confines of the gap, the only avenue for support was from the rear, so Safir would bring the rest of the Corps through as quickly as she could. No one had forgotten the near-catastrophic ambush this new Grik commander had laid for them on Ceylon, so Safir didn’t mean to leave any real spaces between the various regiments for the enemy to exploit.
The river formed an impassable barrier on the south side of the gap, snug against the sheer cliff it had carved through the ages. The gap on the north side of the river was strewn with great, undermined boulders but was reasonably wide, enough that the troops could negotiate most of it in a series of block formations instead of long columns. Against the Grik, massed firepower was still the only defense. Any open-order advance was suicide. The rise in elevation was significant, but fairly consistent. There was good visibility to the front and behind, at least where the road was straight, and though it couldn’t guarantee there were no Grik on the high, forested ridges, the Air Corps assured them they would face no artillery.
As usual, it was a hot, grueling day, and the rough, rocky, uphill passage made transporting their wagons and artillery difficult. Paalkas had hooves, but they weren’t hardened against this type of terrain, and many were lamed. Those too far gone to heal quickly were butchered for the cavalry. Others moaned and squealed in pain loud enough to be heard over the tumbling water, but labored on as if they somehow knew what awaited them if they gave up. Even the cavalry’s me-naaks weren’t immune to injury. None were lamed, but they did grow testy.
Pairs of Nancys occasionally rumbled by overhead, sometimes low enough to drop weighted messages with streamers attached. These would be carried back to Division HQ, but the pilots rightly thought Flynn needed the results of their forward observations first. Some of the messages disturbed him. Apparently, once they’d been told what to look for, the Air Corps had increasingly begun to notice odd clearings in the forest. Where before pilots might have been content to report that no Grik were seen, now they reported the clearings as possible corrals, whether dino-cows were present or not. Flynn was compiling his own mental map of the sightings and the picture practically confirmed, if he was right, that there were a lot of Grik in the area.
Nothing of the enemy had been seen on the more-open plain beyond the pass, but the patrol patterns the Nancys flew didn’t allow them to scout more than about twenty or thirty miles ahead. Twice Flynn sent requests for special flights to scout beyond that, hopefully as far as the Corps’ next objective. More planes eventually flew by, and he hoped they’d gotten the word.
Hours passed in the thick, humid heat within what was quickly becoming known as Rocky Gap, before advance scouts reported they were nearing the western end of the pass.
“Captain Saachic!” Flynn shouted. “Take your company forward, if you please, and scout the flanks as they broaden out. Then find us and the Sularans a couple of good places to park. You know what to look for. Remember, it may take a couple days for the entire corps to move up, so high ground would be nice. Feel free to detail a couple of platoons to begin laying out the position.”
“Yes, Colonel,” Saachic replied, whirling his mount. His orderly, mounted beside him, blew a series of shrill calls with his whistle.
The gap gradually widened, and the daylong tension caused by the confining passage began to ebb. A breeze stirred the regimental flags for the first time that day, and even if it was hot, it was welcome. Flynn didn’t know what he’d expected to find beyond the pass-maybe some kind of prairie, the way it had been described. It was a grassland, but the trees hadn’t surrendered to it entirely. They stood singly or in clumps amid and atop gently rolling hills. They didn’t look much different from the trees in the forest below, but the tall, straight trunks were bare much higher up and were topped with bright green leaves several shades lighter than the dark, thick grass. A line of denser trees followed the river that receded in the distance. In Flynn’s mind, it was beautiful country.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Bekiaa admitted beside him. “Maybe north Saylon is kind of the same, but the trees are different. Only at sea have I ever felt the world was so… big.”
“Yeah,” Flynn agreed. “There’s an awful lot of sky up there, and these craggy, hilly, mountainy things we passed through turn into real mountains to the south. See?” He pointed.
One of Saachic’s troopers galloped up and halted, his me-naak blowing. “Caap’n pick two hills,” he said, pointing north, then south. Flynn looked. Both were about the same size, but were a little farther apart than he would have preferred. As the rest of the corps moved up it would fill the space in between and have two solid anchors, however. When they advanced again, the leapfrogging would no longer be necessary. They should be able to rely on conventional scouting in the relatively open land ahead.
“Okay. We’ll take the northern position, as usual. Ride back until you meet the next company of the Sixth and lead it up. You can show ’em where to go. The First Sular won’t be far behind us.” He paused, looking out at the lovely landscape. Pretty land. Two perfect hills just a little too far apart… He shook his head. Getting paranoid. He knew he’d faced this new Grik general before, and the bastard was sneaky. He hated his guts but had to admire him too, compared to other Grik generals they’d faced. He rubbed his bristly chin, introspective. He wasn’t really a colonel, after all. His only infantry experience prior to this was as a corporal a quarter century ago. Maybe I should’ve stayed with Mr. Laumer and that goddamn sub, he thought.
He shook his head again. No, that Grik honcho may be sneaky, but taking advantage of this would take subtlety-and a lot better understanding of strategy and tactics than any Grik has ever shown. Flynn often based his decisions on what human-or ’Cat-opponents were likely to do and then threw in a double handful of “wild-ass Grik” to compensate for the unpredictable nature of the enemy, but he supposed he usually gave the Grik, and even their new leader, too much credit. Better safe than sorry. Right now he suspected he was giving the enemy way too much credit. He looked at the cav ’Cat. “Well, get on with it.”
“Yes, sur!” cried the ’Cat, and jangled away, back in the direction they’d come. Like all the cav, he held his shortened, carbine-length Baalkpan Arsenal musketoon tight against the sling that kept him from dropping it-but also let it beat the crap out of him if he didn’t hold it that way when his mount was moving quickly. Flynn thought
