Authors: Taylor Anderson
Pete caught himself nodding in agreement, pleased by the note and impressed by the resources being lavished on First Fleet. If he could hold out long enough, he was sure Keje would deal with Kurokawa and retake Madras. He sobered. But Keje would have to hurry.
The last three pages were not for him, but he was grateful for them regardless. They were written orders from Adar himself for three very stubborn Lemurians to get aboard the Clipper and proceed to other assignments. The first, he knew, was pointless. It ordered General Queen Safir Maraan to Ceylon, to take command of IV Corps and prepare for the arrival of additional forces. Pete would pass the orders along, but there was no chance they’d be obeyed. Safir would never leave the troops she led now while they were in such a fix—and as a head of state in her own right within the Alliance, she couldn’t really be forced to. The second set of orders were for Captain Tikker, standing right beside Pete, to report in person to CINCWEST, to resume his duties as COFO aboard
Big Sal
. The veteran flyer with the polished 7.7-mm Japanese cartridge case thrust through a hole in his ear read the orders just as Pete did.
“With respect, Gen-er-aal,” he said, “why don’t I take the next flight of Naan-cees out to
Arracca
, then catch a flight from her to Andaman? We have few enough pilots, and some of our remaining machines need a . . . steady hand.”
In addition to their combat duties—the few machine gun–armed Nancys were hell on Grik zeps, and the rest were decent little dive-bombers—the planes were also making supply runs out to the
Arracca
battle group beyond the eastern horizon.
Arracca
was another Home-turned carrier, and the flights then returned with the small loads they could carry and repaired or replaced aircraft.
“I guess I can let you do that,” Pete allowed, “but I may need your or”—he glanced significantly at Lieutenant Leedom—“
his
help making sure this last set of orders is obeyed.”
Leedom took the page Pete handed him and read it. He swore. “You know she hasn’t even
spoken
to me since I carried her out of that mess on the other side of the gap? She blames me for her surviving when most everyone else didn’t. Hell,” he murmured, “I don’t much care for the thought of that myself.”
“You’re her friend, though, and she’ll listen to you—maybe just because you feel the same way she does,” Pete said.
Leedom’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, I’ll tell her. But where is she?”
Pete gestured at the battle flaring on the other side of the lake. “Over there, most likely,” he said sadly. “Find her quick and get her back here and aboard that plane.” He paused. “And be careful! You’re acting COFO again. I can’t afford to lose you.”
* * *
Captain Bekiaa-Sab-At limped through the sucking mud at the bottom of the trench, Colonel Billy Flynn’s ’03 Springfield slung over her right shoulder. In her mind, Flynn’s confidence in her and his example of simple courage and self-sacrifice had been his greatest legacy to her, but the magnificent rifle from another world was his final, personal gift. Bekiaa meant to see that it was well employed in his honor. She wasn’t supposed to be on the line; the wounds to her left arm and leg had only torn the flesh, but they’d been ugly and painful. They were on the mend, though, and medical release or not, the battle line was the only place she could get even for all the friends she’d lost. Her left arm was almost numb and the fingers tingled strangely, but the leg hurt. A lot. Bekiaa welcomed the pain. It kept her rage hot and sharp—and kept her motivated to kill as many Grik as she could. Flynn’s old Springfield helped with that. There wasn’t a more accurate rifle in the world, as far as she knew, and she’d become an unattached sniper, for all intents and purposes, killing Grik at ranges unimaginable even for the few troops armed with the Allin-Silva conversions.
Her delicate, feline features were hard set and no one, not even General Grisa, whom she trudged past without a word, dared question her right to be there. She was literally moving to the sound of the guns, as the fighting flared along a section of the line defended mostly by Aryaalans and B’mbaadans. Blinking troops watched her pass, and all knew who she was and what she’d been through. They even understood her urge to avenge her friends. Most knew she was an outstanding commander, however, and wished she had a regiment of her own instead of pursuing this single-minded, personal vendetta. She even agreed with some of the more reproachful blinking that reflected that opinion. She
was
shirking her duty to some extent. But the surgeons hadn’t officially released her yet, and until they did, she’d fight however she could.
This
was her notion of healing.
The firing ahead grew more intense and a pair of guns snapped at the darkness, their tongues of flame and billowing smoke clawing at the forefront of a Grik charge boring in. She knew she wasn’t ready for bayonet work, and if she got any closer she’d just be in the way. Moving up on a firing step, she peered out at the battlefield. The Grik were coming in the same old way, mostly mindless, obsessed only with coming to grips with their enemy. The brass had begun to realize they faced almost two distinct species of Grik now: one that fought in this old, haphazard, wasteful style, and another that was more thoughtful, more disciplined. She wasn’t sure what to make of that, but the combination was both confusing and somewhat effective. The Grik that General Rolak faced at the far end of the rising gap would rarely attack like this, but they couldn’t be shifted either. They were clearly protecting something—
defending
like no Grik they’d ever known. Bekiaa didn’t know if they were protecting Grik generals or simply trying to keep the allies off the high plains where they might threaten Grik supplies, but the point was they’d never met Grik who could—or would—
defend
at all. Even Hij-Geerki considered it an alien concept and had no explanation. Bekiaa, like General Alden, she suspected, was sure this new General Halik had something to do with it, but what he’d done, she had no idea.
She shook her head. That was not her concern at present. Carefully, she eased farther up for a better view. Many Grik had muskets now; powerful, if ridiculously crude. They were also matchlocks and almost useless in this weather. Still, some few Grik had learned to use them effectively, even at relatively long ranges, so Bekiaa was careful as she exposed herself. She’d feel awfully stupid if she got her head blown off by some half-wit Grik and his stupid musket, particularly armed as she was. With her muddy, blood-blackened, rhino-pig armor and brindled fur, she was almost indistinguishable from the terrain and she made the most of it, sliding the Springfield up through a gap between a shattered tree stump and lump of mud. Nothing was coming directly at her, though a few musket balls fluttered overhead or spattered her with mud. She strained her eyes—much better in the dark than her enemies’—looking for a Grik leader of some kind. She dreamed of catching Halik himself in her sights, but knew there was no way she’d ever know if she did. Grik officers, even senior noncoms, she supposed—wore taller helmets to accommodate the crests they grew with maturity. Some even wore metal breastplates and capes, but they all looked the same to her. She scanned the press for the taller, metal helmets.
There! A Grik fitting her criteria had paused on the flank of the charge boring in to her right. For a moment it just stood there, waving its warriors on, sometimes whacking them with its sword.
Encouraging them
. That was new, disconcerting behavior they’d also seen more and more. Bekiaa flipped the safety from the right to the left side of the bolt and took aim. The range was about three hundred tails, she guessed, a convenient range for the sights—if somewhat difficult in the darkness. She squeezed the trigger, and the rifle bucked against her shoulder. The Grik dropped like a stone. Smoothly working the bolt, she spotted another target.
The defenders to her right fired a volley, and choking smoke blanketed her field of view, engulfing the Grik charge as it bored in. Another heavy volley stuttered, stabbing through the smoke with jets of fire as the second rank joined the fight. Firing came from the Grik too somehow, and Lemurian screams joined the shrieks of Grik before the charge ever went home. Some of the firing might be coming from rifled muskets captured from the First Sular and most of Flynn’s Rangers. There’d been little ammunition left for anything, and practically none for the breechloaders carried by the 1st of the 2nd Marines, but the enemy had the design now. They’d have designs for lots of things. The Nancy that crashed on the field below the hill had burned completely, but they’d have its engine to look at. The far-superior carriage design of Allied artillery would be theirs to study, as would the mortars, comm gear, and small arms, of course. Besides the loss of Colonel Flynn and so many brave Lemurians, the massacre was a disaster in terms of intelligence.
Bekiaa lost her target and had to give up looking for a while as mud-spattered troops streamed past in the trench, moving to reinforce the part of the line under attack. She didn’t know where they came from and hoped there wouldn’t now be an attack wherever they’d been. She shook her head. The war had been terrible, but almost simple, in a way, for a long time. The Grik had been fiercely lethal, almost numberless, but utterly predictable. Ever since the arrival of this new General Halik, however, that had changed. He was clearly still burdened with a lot of “ordinary” Grik, and likely ordinary Grik leaders, but he’d brought new thinking to the war, and a new kind of Grik as well. As General Muln-Rolak often said, this was not a “fun” war, but it was increasingly interesting—and dangerous.
The last reinforcements hurried past just as the Grik charge struck with a crashing metallic thunder, and Bekiaa started looking for targets again.
There, barely visible in the flash-lit gloom about four hundred tails distant, just at the limit of the killing field hacked out of the forest. If that’s not a Grik general surrounded by his staff, I shall eat my helmet!
She flipped up the sight and raised the slide to the appropriate mark, then settled the rifle into a rigid rest. The curved steel trigger was cool against her finger pad as she took up the lash and held it near the breaking point. Just a gentle squeeze now, and the report and recoil of the rifle would come as a great surprise if all went well.
“Bekiaa!” came a voice. She didn’t quite jerk the shot, but it didn’t feel right. She was almost sure the bullet would go low left.
“What?” she barked harshly, still watching. There was a commotion among the “staff meeting,” so she probably hit somebody, but she was furious at the interruption. Suddenly, she almost laughed. She was angry about being distracted in the middle of a battle!
“What?” she asked more softly, turning to look at Lieutenant Mark Leedom. “You spoiled my aim, Lieutenant,” she continued, trying to decipher the human face moving in the dark. She gave up. “Why are you here? This is an infantry fight.” She couldn’t help blinking wry amusement then. “I thought you preferred to ‘stay above such things.’”
Leedom’s flight suit was nearly as filthy as her battle dress, and Bekiaa wondered what he’d been through to find her. Even so, the young lieutenant’s face split in a wide grin.
“I still surely do, Captain, but if I gotta carry a rifle”—he sheepishly hoisted a musket—“I’d just as soon do it with you—or for you.”
“Are things that desperate yet again?”
“Huh? Oh! No . . . not yet, anyway.”
“Then why are you here?” she repeated.
Leedom shrugged. “Lookin’ for you. General Alden thought you might just hide from anybody else he sent. I wasn’t sure you wouldn’t hide from me.”
“So you sneaked up on me.”
“No! Well . . . yeah.” The battle still raged to their right while they stood looking at each other, but the firing grew more intense and mortars began erupting amid the Grik horde. Both had heard far more desperate fighting, had felt the sense of uncertainty around them as the line teetered on the brink of collapse. There was no such sense now. It was as if the rabid bloodletting, so close to where they stood, didn’t really affect them.
“Why?”
Leedom fished in his pocket and brought out a folded sheet of coarse paper. “Orders, Captain. For you. Please,” he said when Bekiaa hesitated, “at least take them. You can do what you want with them later, but at least I’ve done what I was told. General Alden can be sore at
you
.”
“What do they say?” Bekiaa asked, finally relenting. She could read some now, but even her eyes might not be up to deciphering the little words on the dark page.
“Would I read your mail?”
“Yes,” Bekiaa said with suddenly fond blinking. “What are the orders?”
“Well . . . there’s a Clipper, one of those big flying boats, sitting in the lake waiting for you. Alden wants you on it.”
“Destination?”
“Andaman—and USS
Donaghey
, under Captain Garrett, to command his Marines. He asked for you specifically, if you could be spared.” Leedom looked toward the battle, then back at Bekiaa. “Or you can go all the way back to Baalkpan to help Risa train up her part of this new commando outfit she and Chack are putting together. I guess it’s up to you.”
Bekiaa looked toward the battle as well. Some Grik were starting to run, even as others slew them for it. The attack was on the brink of failure, and no reserves were coming up. Other Grik were withdrawing from the fight in good order—but they were dragging the corpses of the slain, and she wondered at that. The rest of the attack finally broke and ran in something reminiscent of Courtney Bradford’s “Grik Rout,” and the cheers almost drowned the continuing fire that chased the enemy all the way back to the forest’s edge.
“So it is more a request or suggestion than orders,” she said softly.
“I don’t know if I’d put it like that,” Leedom replied, scrutinizing the page. “Says ‘orders’ right here.” He snorted. “Course, I’m sure they already know what General Maraan’s gonna tell ’em to do with the orders they sent
her
.”