Deadly Shores (40 page)

“You have my most sincere thanks, Will, as do your people. I hope we meet again.”

Will had nodded, and without another word, melted away into the dark forest.

Now, Chack's Brigade, minus some three hundred casualties of the trek, was poised just inside the forest before a clearing at the foot of the wall of trees.

“Goodness gracious!” Courtney gasped. “It looks so much larger from this perspective than the sketches drawn by Tikker's scouts implied.” He cocked his head and smiled. “Of course, ‘perspective' is the thing. Even mighty
Salissa
looks quite small from high above. I really should fly about more, you know; air travel often stimulates me to philosophy.” He blinked. “As has this tiresome but fascinating trek just completed. Amazingly stimulating, particularly from a philosophical perspective!”

Chack looked at Courtney and controlled the almost reflexive blinks of amused affection the man's interesting but often random thoughts inspired. He was glad Courtney was there, to contemplate things beyond the immediate necessity of getting over the massive obstacle they'd encountered.

There were many mighty trees, true Galla trees, no doubt, on Madagascar, but to see so many thousands stripped and incorporated into such a monstrous barricade simultaneously struck Chack as sacrilegious and ingenious. Galla trees were sacred, to various degrees, to all Lemurians, and to have countless numbers of them stacked side by side for as far as the eye could see in either direction revolted him. No doubt they leaned against an equal number on the city side of the wall, the pinnacle forming the jagged ridge of an artificial mountain range. How the Grik ever cut and moved such enormous trees, many as tall as a hundred tails, was a mystery, however, and the sheer scope of the construct was awesome to behold. Adding to the mountainous impression, Galla trees were virtually immune to wood-boring insects, and it might take them centuries to rot. This had enabled the wall to foster its very own thriving ecology, and though built on the skeletons of long-dead trees, the wall was alive.

“I don't see any Grik,” Risa said, scanning the peak with her glass.

“No doubt their attention is elsewhere at present,” Courtney observed. “The battle beyond sounds quite vigorous!”

“Cap-i-taan Risa,” Chack said, “I'd be obliged if you personally led a mounted squad to the top of that . . . construct, to view the situation beyond. It appears the slope is not too extreme for our beasts. If all seems clear, do not send a runner, just signal us forward. We will be watching, and I will bring the entire brigade.”

“What if it's not clear?”

“Then you may send a runner, with your recommendations.”

“Ay, ay, Col-nol!” Risa wheeled her somewhat reluctant mount and dashed off to recruit her scouts. Shortly, she and a dozen riders were loping toward the wall, and they quickly, if a little clumsily, managed to scrabble to the top. Chack was watching intently through his own glass, and when he saw his sister wave her arm, he spoke to an aide. “Pass the word—the brigade will advance to the summit yonder. No one will proceed farther, regardless of what they see, without further orders.”

It took nearly an hour to get the entire brigade started out of the woods, across the clearing, and up the treacherous flank of the great wooden wall. Impatient, Chack and Courtney Bradford reached the summit before most of the others, despite Courtney's protests and little cries of fearful surprise as his me-naak lunged jerkily upward.

“That was quite invigorating,” he proclaimed, joining Chack, who'd already reached Risa and dismounted. “I don't know what to compare it to; I've never frequented amusement parks. Perhaps climbing a mast in a storm? In any event, I must say that our . . . might I say somewhat obscure excursion, has set me up amazingly in a physical respect. Not to mention what it has done to restore my natural curiosity and enthusiasm for discovery!” He paused and looked around, seeing for the first time what had taken Chack's attention. “Oh my,” he murmured.

The southern face of the vast palace was directly before them, perhaps half a mile away. A portion of that distance was open ground, broken only by occasional structures that, compared to the rest of the city in view, might have been virtual mansions or estates of some sort. Beyond them was a belt of what looked like barracks, for lack of a better term, before another open area interspersed with garish pavilions lapped against the palace itself. A stairway scaled the side of the palace, interrupted by two arched entrances at different levels, the upper one being more impressively situated in the center of a broad, stony platform overhung by a scarlet awning. Few Grik were in view between them and the palace, and most of those were racing about in a most confusing fashion. Impressive as the palace was, however, a number of other things immediately drew their most intent scrutiny.

Without another distracting word, Courtney dismounted and raised his own binoculars he'd “borrowed” long ago, and scanned the various points of interest along with Chack, Risa, and a number of other officers who'd hurried to join them. The harbor beyond the palace was a strangled mass of burning, smoking wreckage, and the dismal pall that stood above it disappeared into the gray clouds above. First Fleet South and USS
Walker
had clearly completed their objective of savaging the Grik fleet at anchor, but Courtney had never feared otherwise, as long as his friends achieved the surprise they desired. What Courtney hadn't expected to see was the titanic, nearly linear struggle underway just east of the palace. Clearly, the notion of staging a heavy raid had been discarded in favor of something a bit more ambitious. Glancing at Chack, he realized that the commander of the 1st Raider Brigade was not particularly surprised.

“Drive them, my love,” Chack murmured quietly, obviously urging on II Corps in general, and Safir Maraan in particular.

“I take it that our dear orphan queen has decided upon a more aggressively ambitious course of action,” Courtney mused aloud.

“You truly believed she would not—could not—under the circumstances?” Chack asked him gently. Courtney shifted his weight under the blinking scrutiny.

“Oh, I don't know. Perhaps not, indeed.”

“Col-nol!” Risa blurted, still looking through her glass. Like most Lemurians, she had exceptional vision, but the Imperial telescope was still welcome. “It seems that Second Corps is pushing the Grik back toward the palace and the harbor—but if you will note, a number of the enemy closest to the palace are falling!”

Chack raised his own glass once more. Even as he watched, small geysers of mud exploded among the fleeing Grik, checking their dash and sending them sprawling amid puffs of fuzz and sprays of blood. “Someone is shooting them! From the
palace
!” He redirected his gaze. A portion of the east part of the great structure could be seen, and it looked much like that nearest them except there was only a single entrance. A few Grik milled there, but none were shooting. They probably couldn't shoot, given the recent rain that had drenched Chack's Brigade, and probably passed across the battle below as well. “Those have to be modern weapons,” Risa insisted, “the shots are coming from the
north
side of the palace! Some of our people must have made it there!”

One of the company commanders, Lieutenant Galay, a former corporal in the Philippine Scouts who'd survived
Mizuki Maru
, stepped closer to Chack. “That's a BAR, sir. Bet my life on it. The rate of fire is pretty distinctive.”

“You can
hear
it over all that?” Chack waved.

Galay snorted. “No, sir, but aside from the impacts—way too powerful for a Blitzer at that distance—what other automatic weapon could somebody have carried up there?”

“By the Heavens!” Risa groaned with a tone of worried certainty. “Dennis Si-vaa! What has that insane man done now?”

Chack took a breath, knowing Risa had to be right. Despite whatever . . . relationship Silva had, or once had, with his sister (he still could hardly bring himself to contemplate that), Silva was probably his very best friend. If he was in the palace, rapidly becoming surrounded by untold thousands of Grik, inside and out . . .

“My God!” Courtney exclaimed. “There's
Walker
! Sometimes you might glimpse her through the smoke, several miles away beyond the harbor! It looks . . . Oh dear! I believe she's aground, and has her own fight on her hands!” He paused. “It looks as though help might be on its way for her, at least. Some of our ships are venturing toward her. Oh! I hope they're not too late!”

It suddenly became perfectly clear to Chack what had happened. He'd been with Silva in such situations often enough to know exactly what sort of scheme had occurred to the maniacal human. “He's gone for the Celestial Mother—their High Chief!” he stated with certainty. A quartet of Nancys suddenly swooped low over the retreating Grik, and bombs tumbled from beneath their wings. Greasy orange flames roiled into the sky, and black smoke corkscrewed in the wake of the climbing planes. Grik squalled and raced everywhere in panic, many toward the harbor. What could only be a more disciplined formation of several thousand still churned relentlessly toward the palace.

“Uh-oh,” Galay murmured. “More Grik, streaming from the west. Didn't that Jap say that big cross between a coliseum and an anthill next to the palace was some kind of gladiator arena, or something? There're a few hundred Grik running across that causeway thing, straight toward what must be another entrance on that side!”

Chack slammed his telescope shut and turned to Galay. “My compliments to Major Jindal, and would he please take the Twenty-first, and two battalions of the Seventh down there, at the double, and interpose his force between the enemy and the palace? He may have all the artillery and mortars.”

Galay whistled. “What are you going to do, sir?”

“I,” Chack said, “and Cap-i-taan Risa, will take the First Battalion of the Eleventh Imperial Marines and storm the southern entrances. We cannot hope to take more than five hundred men through those arches without getting hopelessly jammed up—and they seem the least well defended in any case. We will maintain communications via the field telephones as long as possible, but must assume we'll lose the line at some point. If Major Jindal finds himself sorely pressed, he—the entire remainder of the brigade—will fall back to the north entrance that, hopefully, will remain in the hands of our friends now defending it.”

“We will have only a battalion of
Impies
?” Risa asked doubtfully, and Chack looked at her. “They will do fine,” he said. “We trained them ourselves, after all. We and the Impies will enter the palace and engage the enemy ‘glaad-i-ators,' and whatever guards there may be. Hopefully we will buy sufficient time for Chief Silva to accomplish whatever it is he is trying to do.”

“Aye, ay, sir!” Galay acknowledged, and trotted away, his slung Allin-Silva slapping his side.

“What about me?” Courtney demanded.

“Personally, I would prefer you stay here, under guard,” Chack said, then shrugged. “That said, you have a rifle, and may go where you wish.”

Courtney Bradford considered this, fingering the sling strap of the Krag he carried. “I've never pretended to be a fighting man, and have yet to fire a shot in this entire war. I've often protested that this modern weapon is wasted in my hands—but of the choices presented to me, tagging along with you does promise to be the most . . . interesting. I believe that's what I shall do, if you've no objection.”

“Just so long as you make the most of the ‘modern' weapon you've so generously been entrusted with,” Chack agreed, shifting his own faithful Krag, slung muzzle down, as always, “and you don't require others to protect you.”

“Never fear, my dear Colonel Chack!” Courtney beamed. “I require no protection! I may not have much combat experience, but I am proficient in the use of arms.” He blinked. “Though perhaps I remain more proficient with a Lee-Enfield than with the charmingly complex peculiarities of loading
this
one! Such a quaint arrangement!” he added, referring to the loading gate on the side of the Krag's receiver. Lee-Enfields used “stripper clips” just like a '03 Springfield, and had a detachable magazine as well.

“You
can
reload it?” Chack questioned, a little offended by the implied slight against his own cherished weapon.

“Oh, quite well. It's second nature to me now,” Courtney affirmed.

Chack blinked discomfort, but turned back to Risa after a glance at the sky. “The drums will likely get wet if we uncover them, and they and the whistles will only draw attention. We have half a mile to cover and cannot possibly do so unobserved, but I would prefer to exploit whatever surprise we may. Pass the word for the brigade to advance—the First of the Eleventh on us!”

//////
2nd Bomb Squadron

Above Grik City

“O
h my God,” Doocy Meek murmured as the four ships in the squadron spiraled lower over the target. Rain lashed the canopy in front of him and turned it opaque, and the wind gusts inside the squall battered the little seaplane in a particularly disconcerting way. But looking down to the side, Meek saw the funnel-shaped mass of Grik directly against
Walker
's side. It even looked like . . . “Captain Tikker,” he shouted into the voice tube that terminated behind the pilot's left ear, “I think the Grik have gained the ship's deck!”

“I see it,” Tikker replied brusquely. “We're almost too late.”

To Meek, it looked like they already were, but after a brief pause, he'd begun hearing urgent pleas for air support on the secondary TBS-tuned receiver again. He couldn't respond, but he could listen. He'd learned the man on the other end was Lieutenant Ed Palmer, and the youngish voice was increasingly desperate. Looking down again, Meek could well imagine why.

“
Some
are holding out down there, Mr. Meek,” Tikker continued, as if reading Doocy's mind. His eyesight was certainly better, Meek knew, but from this height, he never would've guessed it.

“Send to the rest of the squadron that we'll approach from the north so we don't have to adjust our aim after flying through the smoke of that cruiser. The first two ships'll follow us in, and we'll lay our eggs as close alongside
Walker
as we can. The second two will drop on more Griks a little farther out.”

“Why not make two passes?” Doocy asked, even as he hammered out the orders.

“We got the biggest anti-Grik an' Dom bombs in the Navy strapped on,” Tikker explained. “I wanted more, smaller ones, but this is what the geniuses sent over, an' all
Amer-i-kaa
had for us. Anyway, if we only drop one, there's a good chance the ‘rolling moment will exceed the aileron authority,' as Col-nol Maallory would say. In other words, it'll flip the plane when the weight goes.” He paused. “So we got one shot to save
Walker
.”

Doocy Meek finished his transmission and listened for a moment. He really was a “good fist” after all. “Your orders've been sent and acknowledged by all of your pilots, Captain Tikker,” he reported.

“Swell,” Tikker shouted back, gauging the angle as his little squadron continued its orbit to the northeast of the battle below. When he decided the time was right, he banked slightly left and pushed his stick forward. “You better start poppin' yer ears, Mr. Meek, 'cause here we go!”

USS
Walker
Aft Engine Room

The fight raging just a short distance over Tabby's head had been a distraction for some of the Lemurian and female human snipes under her control, but she'd personally managed to tune it out to a large extent. Only when somebody paused in his work, shoring yet more mattresses against the leak in the hull, did she give it any apparent notice—and that was to harangue the culprit with a creditable impersonation of one of Spanky's more colorful rants. The sound of grenades drumming against the plates overhead caused even her to glance up, however. Grenades on deck meant Grik were on deck!

Chief Machinist's Mate Johnny Parks splashed through the hatch from the forward engine room, nervously wiping sweat from his brow. The EMs had finally bypassed the junction box and generator in the space (Tabby remained skeptical that the original schematics would've made that any easier and resolved to cure that later), but though power had been restored to the pumps and the rest of the ship, the aft engine room remained dark. Parks was looking anxiously for her in the gloomy light of the battle lanterns. “Tabby?” he called urgently.

“Here.”

“Spanky says the Grik got past him somehow! They're gonna be down here any minute! What're we gonna do?” Tabby looked at him and blinked. Parks was a good man, but the news had clearly rattled him. That was okay; the very thought of Grik running amok in her engineering spaces rattled her too. She quickly controlled her terror and blinked grim determination. “We can shut 'em outa here, but they'll raise hell in the steerin' engine room, at least.” Her eyes narrowed. “We gotta run their nasty asses the hell out!” She looked at her repair party, evaluating which ones would be less useless in a fight. Theoretically, everyone aboard USS
Walker
was required to be proficient in the use of small arms, but she'd taken on a lot of replacements in Maa-ni-la, and the learning curve in engineering was high enough that she'd let it slide when her snipes habitually skipped the drills. That had been a mistake, she realized now. “Take over here, Mr. Paarks,” she ordered, then called some names. “You guys keep at it. I want this entire space dry as a bone when the tide comes in. The rest of you, quit your shorin' an' drop them timbers. Take sidearms an' cutlasses, an' follow me!”

The Grik were already in the crew's quarters when the sixteen combatants Tabby chose had scrambled up the catwalk and through the upper-level hatch. They heard them even before they saw them, down the corridor between the aft fuel bunkers, rampaging among the racks in the compartment. Tabby quickly told a pair of smaller 'Cats to seal and hold the hatch behind them, and charged into the fight with her Baalkpan Arsenal 1911 barking in her hand. There were no mattresses left for the enemy to shred, but they'd already made a shambles of the place, hacking the chains that held the racks from the overhead, and slashing bedding with their swords. Nearly all the lightbulbs had been smashed for the apparent amusement it provided. The companionway to the provisions locker was choked with Grik, gorging on what they found down there, and Tabby's bullets turned bedlam into pandemonium. Startled Grik, seemingly convinced they'd fought their way past all resistance, hesitated for an instant while the rest of Tabby's fighters deployed behind her and started shooting as well.

The opening fusillade was stunningly loud in the confined space, but not particularly effective. “Try to
hit
'em!” Tabby shouted, disconcerted by how poorly her party's marksmanship measured up to their enthusiasm. “At least point your weapons
at
something before you fire!” Her own first shots weren't much better, but she quickly improved. Downy fuzz floated in the dim light around the portholes, and Grik screeched in agony as they crashed against dangling racks. A lot of them charged, but even her snipes could hit meat at a couple of paces. But bullets ran out. A 'Cat screamed as a Grik slashed her open with its claws. “Don't take time to reload!” Tabby cried. “Use your cutlasses!”

Transferring her smoking, empty pistol to her left hand, she drew her own Navy cutlass with the right, and chopped at the Grik that killed the first snipe she'd ever lost in hand-to-hand combat. Her cleft lips peeled back, baring bright teeth in a furious grimace as she waded into the enemy. Led by her inexperienced but ferocious example, the rest of her little party followed with a roar and a rush. Somehow, they beat the enemy back past the companionway and a small, dark-skinned girl who hadn't been able to shoot before, mercilessly emptied her pistol into the helpless Grik crammed on the stairs to the provisions locker.
She
had time to reload and do it again, and before she loaded her third magazine and moved on, nothing remained alive below. After what seemed like forever but could only have been a few terrible minutes, Tabby and her snipes chased a dozen Grik back up the stairs into the laundry. It cost them, though. Tabby looked around, panting, her right arm and shoulder in agony from the unaccustomed exertion of swinging the cutlass, and realized she was down to ten effectives.

“We keep after 'em!” a burly 'Cat water tender insistently coughed through heaving breaths. His fur was nearly the same shade of gray as Tabby's, and just as slick with foamy sweat and blood. Tabby nodded. He was right. Despite her inexperience with this sort of thing, everybody knew that when the Grik ran, you
chased
them. “Okay,” she gasped. “Ever'body reload pistols.” She blinked determination, and her tail swished sharply. “Nobody stops till the deckhouse is clear an' whatever hatch they come through is secure.” She knew that only the efforts of Spanky and those above could explain why they'd faced so few Grik inside—and there was no telling how long they could keep up whatever they were doing. She suspected it was the grenades she'd been hearing, and sooner or later they'd run out. “Okay,” she repeated, looking up the companionway, “let's go!”

They clambered noisily up the pierced steel stairs. No Grik met them in the laundry, but several were in the head, apparently looking for a way out. They turned at Tabby's appearance and snarled, but there was something . . . a kind of desperation in their eyes that convinced her then that these
couldn't
be the “new” Grik she'd heard so much about. They didn't charge either, but only scrabbled more fervently to escape, tearing up the seats across the trough and even slamming themselves against the portholes. Tabby and the couple of others who fit in the hatchway killed them with their pistols. A 'Cat's scream and a flurry of shots brought them racing into the torpedo workshop where they found two of their own already down. More than the dozen Grik who'd retreated here were still slashing at them, or fighting the rest of their party who'd been backed against the lathe. Beyond that desperate fight, Tabby caught her first glimpse of another, through the open forward hatch. She'd known the Grik were all over the ship; they had to be to have gotten inside, but to see it with her own eyes . . . “At 'em! Kill 'em! Chase 'em out!” she screamed, shooting at the several Grik still savaging one of her own. More pistols popped in the confined space before the three 'Cats behind her joined the rush with their cutlasses. Her pistol empty, Tabby tucked it in her belt and snatched one of several Allin-Silva barreled actions off a rack. She used it as a club in her left hand after she drew her cutlass again. Bashing and slashing, she helped chase the suddenly terrified Grik out the hatch. She briefly caught a bright flash of fiery light out of the corner of her eye, to port, but something
clunked
on the deck among the Grik just outside, and she slammed the hatch just as a deep
bam!
peppered it with grenade fragments. “Watch where the hell you thowin' them things!” she roared, knowing no one above could hear. The water tender tried to push the hatch open again, his eyes blazing with the energy of the moment.

“No,” Tabby said, her own energy suddenly gushing away. “Secure it. We done our job. Now we gotta get this div . . .” She stopped. Three of those by the lathe were badly injured, and two were dead, of course. Her tail went limp. Her division, people she knew and cared for and worked with every day, had suffered a frightful toll. Five members of the party remained unhurt. “We gotta get this division back to work, doin' what we do,” she finished.

*   *   *

A gust of orange fire roiled skyward, close enough to Matt that it seemed to sear his flesh. A raucous skirl of tortured shrieks accompanied the ball of blackening flames, and he turned his gaze to view the roaring Nancys that had finally appeared, banking left over the water and away from the burning cruiser's column of smoke. He blinked watery blood out of his eyes and saw a stream of smoke following one of the planes as it dropped out of formation and angled for the water off
Walker
's starboard side. A yell brought him back to the business at hand, and he thrust his sword down the open mouth of a Grik that had lunged for him with yellow teeth. The sword tip pierced the charging flesh and grated on bone before it suddenly appeared, gleaming red, from the back of the Grik's neck. The creature fell like a reptilian marionette with all its strings cut, and he tried to follow the fall, guiding it slightly as he'd learned to do, so he could retrieve his sword without the blade binding. It had become an unconscious thing. Another Grik battered past a 'Cat to his left, and he shot it with the pistol he'd reloaded at some point and now held in that hand. The Grik took another stumbling step toward him, and his finger tensed on the trigger—but the thing fell under a blow from Bernie's cutlass to the back of its head.

A part of Matt's mind was interested by how the fight had become one of brief, snapshot impressions: the yellow teeth, grasping claws, slashing swords, and wild eyes of Grik and friends alike. Occasional muzzle flashes still punctuated the chaos, and bayonets and spearpoints waved and glittered and leveled and thrust like pale grass on a sunny, windswept day. He blinked. The sun was out; at least a few tentative beams had broken through the clouds and smoke above. That almost distracted him as well, but just then he nearly tripped over a corpse behind him as he took another step back. They'd lost the rails, the only physical barrier they had left, and if he went down now, he was finished. The line between the Grik and the bridge still held, but only because the number one gun had ceased firing and its crew had joined the fight on deck with half a dozen Blitzer Bugs. Their arrival and the fusillade of fire they brought had staggered the Grik for a moment, but when they were empty . . . All Matt could think about was what would happen when the Grik finally swept all the defenders off the upper decks of his ship. Eventually, they'd get below where the wounded were . . . where his wife and unborn child were. . . . The fight on the amidships platform was doomed, he knew, but as long as they held out, as long as they kept some of the enemy away from that line forward . . .

The Grik seemed to know it, and they attacked with a focus Matt had rarely seen, even as the men and 'Cats defended the platform with an equally fanatical desperation. Anything that came to hand was a weapon; Grik spears and shields, even helmets, were wielded and thrown. The Grik were caught up in it as well, using spent shell casings as weapons themselves if they had nothing else, throwing the heavy things at killing, skull-crushing velocities. One such narrowly missed Matt's head, clanging loudly off the open breech of the number two gun behind him. He fought on. No more was he commander in chief of all Allied forces, even if that position had been dangerously undermined by Adar—and himself to a large degree, by his desire to support the precedent Adar was intent on setting. He knew now that had been a mistake; at least the timing of the way it happened had been, and since he'd allowed it, the greatest measure of blame was his. Nobody could've foreseen this situation or the sandbar that precipitated it, but that was no consolation. This, and all the other confused, deadly episodes that had unfolded that day were a direct result of a divided command that left various elements uncertain about what, exactly, was expected of them. Matt suspected
Walker
's mission was the only one that hadn't changed at some point during the fight, and he wondered if a firmer, single hand at the wheel might have made a difference now—at least for his ship and her people. He'd become merely another soldier in the Alliance, unable to influence anything that occurred beyond the reach of his blade. He genuinely didn't expect to survive beyond the next few minutes, but if he did, there would have to be changes.