March Upcountry

“Ah . . .” Jin replied, then burst into laughter. “Sorry,” he choked out. “Sorry, Sir, ah . . .”

A wild rip of bead fire lashed out from Third Platoon’s position and sliced into the Kranolta like a hypervelocity bandsaw. Then another. The Mardukans went down like wheat before a reaper, and Pahner heard the distant sound of almost maniacal laughter from the parapet.

“Sergeant Jin! What the hell is happening down there?” He couldn’t fault the effectiveness of the platoon’s fire, but it wasn’t like they had ammo to spare.

“Ah—” It was all the gunnery sergeant could say as he tore off his own wildly uncontrolled rip of automatic fire . . . and dissolved into helpless laughter of his own.

Pahner started to bellow furiously at Jin, but the firing quickly got itself back under control, and he clamped his jaw tightly. Then he tilted his head to the side and flipped to the platoon frequency just in time to hear “ . . . no, man, really. I love you!” followed by hysterical laughter as Gronningen explained exactly what was going to happen to the NCO when he got his extremely heterosexual fingers around Julian’s throat.

“Juliannn!” Pahner began, then paused as he realized that not only was the firing steadier, but he could actually see smiles on the faces of the troopers on the parapet. Some of those smiles might be a little crazed, but it was obvious that at least one platoon had stopped contemplating the likelihood of death in the near future.

“Buuut, Caaaptain!” the NCO whined.

“And,” sobbed Jin, who was well known for his own interests, “I’ve gotta tell the Sergeant Major I love her, tooo!”

“Okay, people,” Pahner said, shaking his head but unable not to do a little laughing of his own. “Let’s settle down and kill us some scummies, okay?”

“Okay, okay,” Julian said. “Sorry, boss.”

“I’m still gonna kill your ass, Julian,” Gronningen growled. A burst of fire echoed over the open link. “But I’ve got other things to do in the meantime.”

And so Bravo Company, Bronze Battalion of The Empress’ Own, went into battle against overwhelming odds . . . with an uncontrollable chuckle on its lips.

Morale is to the physical as ten is to one.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

“Are these stupid bastards ever going to realize that they’re beaten?” Pahner wearily asked no one in particular.

Damage from repeated plasma blasts had finally forced him to abandon the gatehouse, which was now a pile of rubble, and move into the Third Platoon bastion. The Kranolta had taken unspeakable losses throughout the long Mardukan day, but still they insisted on charging the castle. And in so doing, they’d whittled their opponents down to practically nothing.

Of the seventy-two members of The Empress’ Own who’d survived the initial Kranolta ambush, barely half were still on their feet. Pahner had come to the point of regretting his decision to immure Poertena and Cord’s nephews in the keep. They were safe there, but he could have used them on the walls.

He shook his head. There were still several thousand Kranolta out there, and they’d stopped trying to take the keep. The last wave had avoided the smoldering killing ground of the bailey and hurled itself solely against Second Platoon’s portion of the wall and its bastion. The attack had crashed in behind a massive javelin launch, and Second Platoon had taken terrific casualties before it could beat off the assault.

As always, the Mardukans’ losses had been enormously higher than the humans’. Unfortunately, the Marines could kill hundreds of the barbarians for every one of their own casualties and still lose. It was insane. Whatever happened to the company, the slaughter of the Kranoltas warriors had already been so extreme that the clan itself was almost certainly doomed to extinction, but they didn’t seem to care. Or perhaps they did. Perhaps they knew their people had already been effectively destroyed this bloodsoaked day, and all they wanted now was to drag down and kill the aliens who’d slain them.

Whatever they were thinking, they were also lining up for yet another attack on Second Platoon, and he lifted the visor of his helmet to scrub his eyes in exhaustion.

He could shift some of Third Platoon over to Second’s area, but if he did that and the scummies hit Third’s bastion simultaneously, they would sweep away the reduced defenders. No. The only option was to order Third to fire everything it had into the flank of the assault. That hadn’t stopped the last one, but maybe it would work this time. Something had to break these bastards.

He shook his head again as the scummies surged forward. The ground was so thickly covered with their dead that they literally had to climb over drifts and hills of bodies just to reach the wall, but they didn’t even seem to notice. They just came on through the hail of bead and grenade fire from front and flank until they hit the wall. Then the ladders went up again, and the Kranolta swarmed upward.

The plasma cannon in the keep and Third Platoon’s bastion could bear on them as they topped the battlements, but the gunners had to be careful. Not only was there the danger that they might inflict human casualties in the wild melee atop the wall, but one twitch to the side, and the plasma bolts could blow the door right out of the other bastion.

Now that door rang to the sound of axes again, and bead gunners from Third Platoon’s bastion picked off the axmen carefully. Again, a burst of beads in the wrong spot would do the scummies’ work for them.

Only three of Third Platoon’s spear slits overlooked the other platoon’s doorway. Against any rational foe, that should have been enough, but these were Kranolta. A bead rifleman stepped back with a jammed rifle, and for the flicker of time required for someone to replace him, a single scummy was able to survive long enough to drive three more blows into the hastily assembled timber barricade.

The barrier had finally taken all it could stand. It crumbled, and a wild, hungry scream of triumph went up from the Kranolta as they saw their chance at last.

Pahner dropped down to the plasma cannon and slapped the gunner on the helmet. He pointed to the open doorway and the line of scummies clawing towards it against a solid wall of bead fire.

“Fire it up!”

“But, Captain—” the gunner began. The angle to the doorway was acute, and it the odds were better than even that none of the plasma bolt itself would carry through it. But they were just barely better than even, and even if the bolt itself didn’t, blast, fragments, and thermal bloom through the doorway and its covering spear slits would be more than sufficient to turn the bastion’s interior into a vision of Hell.

“Do it!” Pahner snapped, and keyed the general frequency. “Second Platoon! Duck and cover! ”

The gunner shook her head and triggered three rounds into the mass around the doorway, clearing the narrow walkway. Someone shrieked over the radio as the rounds impacted, but there was no time to think of that, and Pahner leapt back to his previous perch as the Kranolta recoiled again.

But they didn’t recoil far, and the Marine cursed. They’d barely retreated at all this time, dropping below the level of the now unmanned wall, which put them just out of the angle of fire from the defenders clinging to the bastions and the keep. His taccomp threw fresh strength estimates up on his HUD, and he swore again. There were still three thousand or so of them left. Which wasn’t very many for a force which had begun with eighteen thousand, but his readouts showed only thirty-one of the company still mobile.

We can still win this thing, he thought. They’re wearing us away, but we’re wearing themaway even faster. Two more assaults. Maybe three. That’s all we’ve got to make it through, and—

The enemy’s horrible trophy horns brayed as they worked themselves up for yet another assault, and Pahner’s nerves tightened. But then he heard another sound, an answer to the Kranolta horns. A harsher, deeper braying came from the west, and Pahner looked in that direction and his heart seemed to freeze.