“Where’s your-MY-weapon!” Flynn demanded. Leedom blinked, eyes unfocused.
“Here!” cried Bekiaa, running up behind them and scooping the Springfield off the ground.
“How’d you get back there?” Flynn asked.
“Got in a fight. There’s a big one, you know.”
Flynn barked a laugh, then looked back. For the moment, the Rangers and Marines were holding the Grik away, and the ambulances, screened by meanies, were surging through the bloody gash in the Grik horde. The sight gave him a thrill-until he looked north. The Grik were throwing warriors into the fight ahead of them, deepening the line they’d have to cut through. He calculated the odds for an instant, then shook his head. It was just too much. “Where’s Saachic?”
“Here, Col-nol,” the ’Cat yelled down at him, his meanie almost sliding to a stop on something slick in the grass. “I’m sorry,” he said miserably. “They react too fast! We’ll never get the wagons through, sir.”
“No shit,” Flynn agreed, thinking fast. “But you can still cut through if you do it quick!”
“Col-nol!”
“Shut up! Call all your troopers here now. Bekiaa! Get over there and tell them to direct the ambulances to gather here as well. We’ll never get them into anything organized, but we can throw ’em over, fort up, wreck the breechloaders!”
Saachic began blowing the three shrill recall notes on his whistle, over and over, and other whistles dully repeated them over the tumult.
“Is this loaded?” Bekiaa asked Leedom, raising the Springfield. The flyer still seemed stunned, blood leaking from his forehead and down each side of his nose, but he nodded.
“Yeah. I just used the sticker… not very well.” Bekiaa was already gone.
No longer quite like ants, perhaps, the Grik horde began to encircle its prey, even as that prey fought to consolidate itself, to fend off the gnashing jaws that prepared to close on it. Quickly, the remaining ambulances joined the hasty laager, but not all of them made it. Out of ammunition, paalkas killed, Marines and wounded fought to the last and died in little clots. Captain Bekiaa’s chore complete, she raced back toward where she’d left Colonel Flynn, but spun when a crossbow bolt slammed into her side. She tried to continue on through the sharp, searing agony that made her left arm and leg almost useless, but a Grik musket ball sent her helmet flying and she dropped like a stone. She couldn’t know it, but the shot that ended the battle for her was one of the last ones fired by the Grik. A mist had moved in. Slow match fizzled, and fouling-caked priming pans turned into slimy black soup bowls. The allied caplocks would still shoot, but the ammunition was almost gone. The bayonet, spear, and sword had replaced most of the firing as the roar of battle turned even more primal. Bekiaa never felt the hands that lifted her from the high, bloody grass. She would never even know whose they’d been.
“You guys better go!” Colonel William Flynn roared over his shoulder, Baalkpan Armory rifled musket in his hands, bayonet fixed. His helmet was gone and his thinning red hair was sweat glued to his scalp. The eyes were sunken with exhaustion but bright with excitement. Lieutenant Mark Leedom knew that was how he would always remember the man.
“We can’t hold ’em much longer,” Flynn continued as the Grik surged relentlessly closer, “and they’re getting thicker over there.” He tossed his head northward, then nodded at Bekiaa’s still, bloody form. “You gotta get her out of here!”
Leedom’s eyes filled with red tears as he looked helplessly back at Flynn, the unconscious, bandage-wrapped ’Cat held close at his side on top of one of the scary-looking me-naaks. “But… God damn it, Colonel, I ought to stay. Give her to one of the other fellas! I don’t even know how to… to control this damn thing!” Every single paalka was dead now, and fewer than 150 meanies remained, their riders doubled, even tripled up with wounded. Leedom watched with suddenly wide eyes while NCOs grimly strode among the meanies, cutting away the muzzles that protected the riders from their terrible jaws. “What the hell?”
“Don’t worry,” Captain Saachic said, his voice dull with sadness and exhaustion. “You don’t have to control him. He’ll follow the rest of us. Just hang on.”
“But… what if he tries to eat me?”
“He won’t. He’ll snatch something to munch on along the way.” Saachic shrugged. “If he does try to eat you though, shoot him a couple of times in the side of the head with your pistol. He’ll leave you alone after that.”
Leedom blinked, then looked back at Flynn. “But… why me?”
Flynn actually laughed. “Hell, boy. We’d all be dead already if it weren’t for your planes. We need you. The war needs you. I’m just an old pig-boat chief who took up a rifle. Nothin’ special about me.” He pointed at Bekiaa. “ She ’s special, and so are you.” He paused. “And so are my Rangers. Don’t let ’em forget us!” He looked around. “Remind ’em there was Marines here too! And Sularans, by God!” A ragged, gasping cheer built around them. “Besides, we ain’t finished yet. We’ll form a square and bust one more hole for the meanies!”
“What then?” Leedom demanded.
Flynn shrugged. “We’ll kill Grik until we can’t kill anymore. Who knows?” He pointed at Bekiaa. “She and Garrett did it at the Sand Spit, and Captain Reddy did it at Aryaal! Maybe we’ve got a little farther to go, but there’s more of us!” He grinned. “If you get through to General Maraan, tell her to come get us. Hear?”
Leedom nodded woodenly. “I will, Colonel. I’ll tell her that and more.” Everyone knew there would be nothing left to “get.” This wasn’t Aryaal-or the Sand Spit.
Flynn looked at Saachic. “Remember, when you toot your whistle, everything we’ve got will surge ahead of you and make a hole. Keep going and don’t slow down for anything, or it’ll all be for nothing.”
“We could have broken out… like this-just leaving you behind-from the hill!” Saachic blurted accusingly.
Flynn nodded, but gestured at the overturned ambulances. “Yeah, and I probably should’ve made you do it… but I had to try.” He looked back at Leedom. “You’ve got my Springfield. Tell Bekiaa she can use it… till I want it back.” Suddenly, he shifted back and forth on his feet. “Hey! You know, my muscles are kinda sore-but my joints ain’t hurtin’ anymore!” With that, he turned back to face the thickening mob of Grik.
A long, harsh whistle blast shrilled above the sound of battle.
CHAPTER 23
Enchanted Isles
March 22, 1944
Lord High Admiral Harvey Jenks entered Elizabeth Bay in the predawn darkness aboard his old Achilles, commanded by his former first lieutenant-now Captain-Grimsley. USS Mertz and USS Tindal followed him in. Elizabeth Bay, located on the southwest coast of Albermarl Island, was the largest anchorage in all the Enchanted Isles, and Elizabethtown, nestled on the north side of the bay between two great, looming peaks, was the capital of the far-flung outpost. As they approached the batteries guarding the harbor, all three frigates, or DDs, fired the green recognition rockets the leaflets dropped by the aviators told the defenders to expect, but a measure of tension lingered. The defenders had fired on the planes, after all, and they’d had no contact with other Imperial forces for months. They might even be suspicious that three ships had so easily evaded the Dom blockade. As for that, it had not been too difficult. The Doms were dedicated sailors, and the steamers had only to wait until they could pass to windward-but that might not be clear to the defenders. Jenks had added a greeting to Governor Sir Thomas Humphries in the leaflets, with a personal reference the man should understand and appreciate, but that was no guarantee. Sir Thomas might be dead.
Besides, a lot had been going on that night, and even now the northern sky pulsed with sharp, distant lights. The mountains of Albermarl blocked much of the show, but it looked as if one of the mountains itself had come to life. That happened sometimes, but Jenks knew that wasn’t the case now. At that moment, the bulk of Second Fleet was pummeling the Dom encampment and positions on the northern part of the island, and soon three thousand Lemurian troops and roughly the same number of Imperial Marines, all led by the enigmatic General Shinya, would launch what promised to be the largest amphibious assault of the war in the east-so far. Most of the visible flashes likely came from the mighty guns of the Second Fleet flagship, Maaka-Kakja, herself.
It was likely the defenders were unnerved by the distant spectacle, not knowing what it was, but there was no way Jenks could have warned them about it. Some of the leaflets might have fallen into enemy hands and the Allied invasion had to be a surprise.
