“Corporal,” Macek whispered. “We’ve got movement.”
“Let’s get ready to rock and roll, people,” Sergeant Major Kosutic said as a leader of the Pasule contingent stalked to the fore. The two armies had stopped just beyond javelin range from each other, and the Pasulian now waved his sword overhead, clearly exhorting his smaller force to attack. His words, probably fortunately for the humans, couldn’t be discerned, but whatever he said worked, for the mass started into a trot behind him.
“Showtime.”
“Fire,” Moseyev whispered, and Gronningen tapped the fire button.
The plasma cannon spat out three carefully calculated bursts. One into each flank of the Marshad contingent, and the third directly into the rearmost ranks of the Royal Guard.
Pahner drew, turned, and fired three carefully aimed beads. The only three guards between him and the king went down like string-cut marionettes, and he sprinted forward.
The anticipated explosions roared behind them, and Bravo Company, Bronze Battalion, The Empress’ Own, executed a perfect about-face and opened fire into the forces at their back.
Eleanora O’Casey hit the ground and covered her head.
Sergeant Despreaux dropped her bead rifle to hip level and followed her HUD aiming point as the grenadiers to either side of her went to continuous fire.
Corporal Moseyev pressed the hand unit detonator button, simultaneously firing the semicircle of stake- mounted directional mines and detonating the kilo charge of C-20 catalyst under the bridge. The charge was half the company’s total supply . . . and sufficient to take down a three-story office building.
Pahner’s first kick took Radj Hoomas in the groin. Anecdotal evidence had suggested that the area was nearly as vulnerable for Mardukans as for humans, which proved to be the case as the monarch doubled over in agony. The captain followed up with a spinning sidekick that intercepted the descending head on the temple. Mardukans, unlike humans, had thick bone there, but the impact still spun the king off his feet and stunned him.
The ruler of Marshad hit the balcony’s stone floor and bounced, and Pahner grabbed the heavy Mardukan by one horn, yanked his head up, and shoved the muzzle of his bead pistol against it. Then he looked up, prepared to threaten the king’s life to control the guards.
But there were no guards to control.
Those who had lined the back wall of the balcony had been reduced to so much paste by the impact of hundreds of beads and a dozen grenades in the confined space. Stickles was down, with a javelin in the side, but he would live, and that was the only casualty the humans had taken.
All eight of the guards who’d been directly around the king were dead. Most of them appeared to have been caught flat-footed, watching the plasma cannon, but one, at least, had apparently reacted to the captain’s attack. That one had his sword out . . . and a bloody hole in his stomach. All the others had been hit in the head, neck, and upper chest.
Roger holstered his pistol and rotated his shoulder.
“I really have to find the guy who wrote that program and thank him when we get back.”
Gronningen pounded rounds into the two flanks. The company was too intermixed with the Royal Guard now for him to fire into the center, but the flanks were fair game. He winced as he saw another Marine go down, but there was nothing he could do from here. Nothing but give covering fire and keep the flanking mercenaries off their backs.
Moseyev picked up one of the shredded guards’ javelins. The directional mines had stripped away a few centimeters of the end, but aside from that—and the dripping gore—it was intact, and he tied the first line to its haft and waited.
Denat sprinted to the water’s edge, then skipped aside as the javelin came scything through the air. The last rocks were still raining down from the demolished bridge when he picked the weapon up and threw it over the chosen tree limb. He motioned for slack and quickly tied a bowline slipknot in the rope and signaled complete. The rope twitched upward, and he smiled. Company was coming.
Roger heaved on his end, and the Mardukan he’d been sharing with Kyrou thumped soddenly into the pile against the door. He skipped aside and shook his head as Pahner and Surono came out with another.
“I’ve heard the expression before,” he said, “but I never thought I’d do it.”
“You see anything else to barricade the door with, Your Highness?” Pahner asked with a frown. “This is what war is all about: doing things you don’t like to people you don’t like even more.”
“Sergeant Major,” Julian said, jumping over a small mountain of Mardukans, “remind me never, ever to make that joke again.”
“What’s that?” Kosutic asked. She was simultaneously trying to walk sideways over the mounded bodies of the Royal Guard, tie a bandage on Pohm’s neck, and make sure nobody was being left behind.
“Join the Marines . . .” Julian said.
“Travel to fascinating planets,” Georgiadas chorused as he fired at one of the flankers who’d stopped to throw a javelin at them. The Marshad contingent’s instinctive retreat to the city had come to a screeching halt when the bridge disintegrated in its face. Unable to fall back, it was beginning to reform south of the original battlefield, and even after the terrible pounding it had taken, the Marshadans were almost as numerous as the Pasulians.
“Meet exotic natives,” Bernstein yelled, dropping a line of grenades across the line between the humans and the Marshadans.
“And kill them,” Julian finished somberly as he shouldered the rolled up bag of ashes that was all that was left of Lieutenant Jasco. “Somehow, it’s just not funny anymore.”
“It never was, Julian.” Kosutic finished the bandage and clapped the “repaired” private on the back. She looked around the battlefield and pointed to the marked assembly area. “
“So I should just shut up and soldier?”
“No. But you might wait until we’re done with the mission,” the sergeant major said, “and that will be a long time. Or at least wait to have your moral dilemma until the battle’s over. In case you hadn’t noticed, it isn’t. And afterwards, you can drown your sorrows in wine, like the rest of us.
“I’m not saying that you have to be one of those guys who drinks from the skulls of dead enemies,” she said as the company started to gather and tally off the dead and wounded. “But we have a few to pile yet. So wait until we’re done to start the bitching.”
“So you’re just gonna leave me here, huh?”
Gronningen triggered another shot at the distant Marshadans. There were at least a thousand warriors in the mass, but it was nearly three thousand meters away. Maximum effective range for the cannon was only four thousand meters in atmosphere, due to energy bleed, so shots at this range were relatively ineffectual, but they still served to keep the Marshadan force off the backs of the rest of the Marines as they trotted steadily back towards his hilltop position. And, of course, the cannon would become increasingly effective if any of the Marshadans were stupid enough to come into shorter range.
“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” Macek said nervously. Dozens of Mardukan soldiers had appeared at Marshad’s gate, and more were coming from around the backside of the hill. If the main contingent didn’t arrive soon, the
