Keje said nothing for a long moment. He knew Pete was angry; so was he. Nine out of a city of thousands! But he also knew the Marine would see reason . . . if they ever needed prisoners again. “So . . . how do you think we should proceed from here?” he asked.
“There’s still fighting in the northern part of the city, so I don’t know how much of the industrial works we’ll get—whatever it is—but there’re fires even farther north, farther than our deepest penetration, so it looks as though they’re wrecking what they can.”
“Hmm. Further evidence this ‘General Grik’ has escaped, I fear,” Keje said.
“Well . . . yeah, maybe so.”
Keje looked out at the ruined city in the dark. Some parts burned brightly while others smoldered like coals in a fire. “We must pursue,” he said simply. “We have a chance to annihilate them in the northern plains before they cross the land bridge to Indiaa.”
“You got it, Admiral,” Alden said. “That’s what I was going to suggest. We need to finish rooting this dump out, but we can handle that and be back on the move in a few days. If you head north along the coast, bomb or shell anything you see, then park your ships to cover that low-tide causeway. . . .”
“If the water is deep enough . . .”
“Well, sure. Anyway, we can sweep up behind you, guided by the ‘Nancys,’ and maybe we can catch ’em between us, out of hope, out of gas, out of supplies and artillery, and hopefully by then, out of their goddamn minds!”
CHAPTER 20
New Dublin
The battle for New Dublin raged furiously throughout the rest of the night as the Doms fell back toward the bastion in the northwest part of the city. Chack, Silva, and Lawrence rejoined the companies pushing north with Jindal, and after a brief meeting when Silva told them what they’d seen from the air—and Lawrence squirmed under the amazed scrutiny of strangers—the push resumed with a better idea of what they faced. More and more townsfolk, either honestly rising to aid in their liberation or cynically taking what appeared to be the winning side, swelled Chack’s and Jindal’s ranks to the point that they finally reestablished communications with Blair’s larger force on what had become the allied left. He’d known they were coming through the coastal suburbs and palatial estates of the elite by the numbers of Doms—and their sympathizers—streaming past his own right toward the bastion. When the flood became a trickle, he knew the linkup was at hand, and he and his staff met them as the moon began to fade in the brightening sky. The entire allied line was finally reestablished among the affluent—and far less congested—homes southeast of the bastion between the mountains and the glimmering, graying sea.
“We meet again, Mr. Silva!” Blair said, extending his hand.
“We do?” Dennis asked, clasping it, and shaking vigorously.
“Well . . . yes. I was but a lieutenant of Marines at the time, but we met at a quaint dining establishment in Baalkpan before I sailed with Commodore Jenks and the squadron bound for the west.”
“Zat so?”
“Perhaps you’ll remember later,” Blair said uncomfortably. He saluted Chack. “A most interesting night. I’m glad you’re well, sir. I apologize for the . . . disorganized nature of the assault.”
“I’m glad you made it, Mr. Blair. And as for the confusion”—Chack blinked—“my Marines have never fought a battle like this before either.”
“Yeah,” said Silva. “More like a drawn-out street brawl in Olongapo—with no SPs—than any battle I ever saw.”
“What’s the situation here?” Chack asked.
“The enemy has skirmishers in the dwellings ahead, but the greatest threat is that they’ve massed their artillery on this front of the bastion.”
“If we could flank the fort, they’d be at our mercy,” Chack observed.
“True, but we can’t move along the cliffs on this side of the mountains. The slopes are bare and within range of their guns. They would see the movement and merely shift their batteries accordingly. And even if we could embark enough troops on ships in all this chaos to get beyond the fort, we’d have to take them nearly to Bray—which is in enemy hands—before we reach a suitable place to land them.”
“Mortars?”
“Most of the crews brought their weapons up to the edge of the city, hoping to support our movements, but we had no contact with them through the night. They showed admirable initiative, and would have saved us if we’d been repelled,” he admitted, “but their utility now is questionable. They’re low on ammunition, and they haven’t the range of artillery. If we move them close enough to drop their bombs into the bastion, they’ll be slaughtered.”
“We can try to get air support,” Chack suggested.
“Uh, maybe,” said Silva. “Lieutenant Reddy, the pilot of the plane that brung me and Lawrence . . .” He saw Blair’s surprised expression. “Yeah, he’s the actual cousin of ‘Himself,’ if you can imagine.” He chuckled. “I guess it’s a small world, even when two of ’em get mashed together. Anyway, he’d know what we can get and how to do it, but I ain’t got a clue.”
“Semaphore back up the mountains and down to Waterford?” Jindal suggested.
“Maybe,” Silva allowed, “but everything at the lake looked like a mess to me—before we might’ve sorta made it a little worse,” he added cryptically. He saw the others stiffen. “Don’t worry, I reckon the Doms in the valley are the least o’ your concerns, and the garrison there should be safe enough, but things were already a goose pull at the command level even before . . .” He grinned. “I like that Lieutenant Reddy. He has a elegant approach to fightin’ I can appreciate!”
Chack’s tail swished with . . . nervous anticipation, but Silva didn’t elaborate.
“Anyway,” Dennis resumed, “we might get word to Sor-Lomaak, who can holler at Cap’n Lelaa, an’ maybe she can sort it out. But what about them flyin’ Grik? Is there more of ’em? Where’re they roostin’? Tough to bring more planes in when they might just get knocked down.”
“I can’t answer that,” Blair said. “We’ve taken few prisoners and none would speak. The loyalists we’ve asked never saw them before last night, so it’s doubtful they ‘roost’ in the city. Yet further proof this . . . treachery was planned and begun long before the attack on New Scotland! The question of where all these Doms and their support elements have been preparing still remains, however.”
“Oh.” Silva shrugged. “As for that, I got the word before we got tangled up with them Grik birds. Cap’n Lelaa sent a recon north, and several Dom ships was seen steamin’ toward here outta the west. She figgered they were troopships, from your folks’ description of their warships still bein’ under sail. She recalled them scouts to be armed an’ sent to sink ’em! What’s west o’ here where the Doms might stage up?”
“The India Isles?” Blair speculated. “A couple are substantial, but not particularly suited for habitation. They’re rarely visited.”
“Sounds ideal,” Silva agreed. “They use ’em for a stagin’ area for here. If there’s anything left on ’em after this fracas, just park a couple ships there an’ starve ’em out.”
“Indeed, that seems the most likely explanation,” Blair said, “and the best way to eliminate the problem . . . there. We still have our problem here, though.”
“Why not just starve these creeps out too?” Silva asked. “I mean, you said yourself we’ve about got the boogers bottled up in that fort. Leave’em to rot.”
Chack was surprised by the relatively passive suggestion, considering the source.
“No,” Blair said, determinedly. “They’ve invaded our country, and we’re only beginning to learn the extent of the atrocities they committed here in the name of their sick Church! They’ve ‘sacrificed’ hundreds of people, mostly women, and not even most were indentures! Most were daughters of citizens! We must destroy them root and branch so any here that sympathize with them will learn the cost of treason!”
“I agree,” Jindal growled with no less
intensity.
“I as well,” said Chack, less eagerly but with equal determination. “We have a much wider war to consider. Our forces cannot be tied here waiting for the enemy to starve.” He looked at Silva. “I’ve faced these ‘people’ before, and they fight with near the same determination and fanaticism as Grik. Unlike Grik, however, their fanaticism is based on thought and teaching, not instinctual rote. They do as their priests demand of them believing it is right! As long as they hide behind those walls, we must keep sufficient forces here to protect against an attack from within, and they are smart enough to plan an attack to coincide with our moment of least preparedness. They might inflict heavy casualties before they’re stopped, and may even raze the city completely. Worse, they won’t care if all die in the attempt, because the leaders of their faith assure them they’ll be gathered into paradise at the very instant of death!”
“So these ‘padres’ o’ theirs are like Hij gen’rals, er somethin? What’s the top dog look like?”
“Like those that attacked Scapa Flow, a ‘Blood Cardinal’ is present, and would be their overall commander,” Blair said. “His vestments resemble their flag: a red cloak with a barbarously shaped gold cross embroidered upon it. Their headgear is ostentatious, but its shape is different from one to the next. The descriptions I’ve heard of the one here makes it sadly clear it’s not that damned ‘Don Hernan,’ who orchestrated the plot on New Scotland. He must have fled east, back to their lands after all.”
“What would happen if he got bumped off?” Silva asked casually.
Jindal snorted. “Who knows? He’d never expose himself to harm, I’m sure, but ‘Blood Cardinals’ are reputedly immune to ‘earthly injuries’! That’s one reason we’ll hang the bastard for all to see when we catch him. That might go a long way toward undermining the foundations of their perverted teachings!”
“Don’t they ever just, you know, croak?”
Blair snorted this time. “Oh no. To attain ‘godliness’—and I do mean they’re semideified!—Blood Cardinals must mutilate themselves to death! For your average Dom, it’s enough that they ‘die in pain at the hands of another’ to enter paradise!”
“Do they really do it?” Chack asked, amazed. He knew more than Silva, but hadn’t known that.
“Their ‘popes’ sometimes do, when they’re old and sick. I’m sure they’re drugged silly at the time. Usually, those like the chap here, or Don Hernan, are simply laid out for viewing after they’ve suddenly been ‘called to the heavenly embrace.’ I suspect they’re mutilated after a natural death.”
“Wow,” said Dennis. “Huh. I bet them Dom soljers’d flip if they seen their head witch doctor spattered by a cannonball!”
“A lovely thought, and likely correct,” Blair said, grinning, “but as I said, he’ll be well protected—and better protected the longer we wait to finish this!”
Chack looked at the Imperials, then studied the condition of the troops gathered round. “We must destroy them now, while we have the momentum, before they have time to consolidate and improve their defenses!”
All during the conversation, the guns in the bastion continued a steady fire, demolishing houses and shops on the ground separating the two forces. The air was filled with white dust and gray smoke from shattered masonry and rampant fires. A few buildings remained standing, probably full of observers, but it was clear the Doms were making a killing ground that would be difficult to cross.
“Big guns for a fort not designed to protect a harbor. What are they? Eighteens? Twenty-fours?” Dennis suddenly asked.
“Twenties,” Blair said, and Silva blinked at the odd, non-“British” standard bores.
“Watcha got in them forts Sor-Lomak’s fellas took?” he asked.
“Thirties . . . but many will be damaged and none will bear!”
“So? Look, Chackie here knows you ain’t gotta prod me to fight, but a great hero o’ mine once said, ‘Never send a man where you can send a bullet’! How long would it take to bring them thirty-pound whoppers up?”
“Considerable time, I’m sure,” Blair said, “but they would outrange the enemy batteries and negate their efforts to improve their defenses—once we started battering them down! Mr. Silva, I’ve heard a . . . great many things about you, but the accounts have neglected your tactical value!”
“Oh, he’s a taac-ti-caal wonder, gentlemen,” Chack said dryly. “Just pay no heed to his . . . straa-teegic suggestions!”
“I’m too modest to crow,” Silva proclaimed grandly, looking at Lawrence, who stood there with the broken Doom Whomper. The artillery duel he’d proposed would make a hell of a show, but he intended to send a few well-placed bullets of his own. “Say, anybody in this dump got any glue?”
Colonel Tamatsu Shinya strode into Waterford at the head of his column of Lemurian troops late that afternoon, still staring in wonder at the forest of blackened, skeletal trees surrounding the surely once-picturesque lakeside town. His eyes quested upward occasionally, searching the sky for “dragons,” or “Grik birds” as the fliers called them in their reports. Nothing flew, not even the blizzards of parrots and small, indigenous “dragons.” There was nothing in the air but smoke.
It had been a grueling day. First, they’d come ashore under stiff fire from Dom positions on either side of the beleaguered town of Cork, where the pitiful remnants of the garrison had managed to hold through the night, despite gloomy expectations. The survivors were overjoyed to see them and the mighty USS Maaka-Kakja, as her massive form resolved itself offshore in the light of the breaking day. Another Imperial ship of the line had joined her in the night, and added her guns to Maaka-Kakja’s as she shelled the enemy positions. Air strikes from the great carrier and the planes she’d recalled from Lake Shannon quickly disrupted the Doms and rebels investing the town across the Belfast and Easky roads. Unable to stop the landings, both forces withdrew as the crack Lemurian regiments streamed ashore. Imperial Marines disembarked from the newly arrived ship of the line, under the direct command of the one-armed Sean “O’Casey” Bates, who’d come to represent the Governor-Emperor himself. As soon as the enemy pulled back, Bates went aboard Maaka-Kakja to greet Rebecca Anne McDonald, his long-lost princess. It was a tearful and touching, if brief reunion, between the child and her onetime fugitive protector and guardian, but Bates quickly returned to shore to oversee his troops and the reconsolidation of the defenses around Cork.
The Imperials remained there while “Shinya’s Division” pushed over the Wiklow Mountains and saw firsthand the results of the previous night’s action in the valley below. None had seen the valley before except the local scouts who led them, but by all accounts what had once been a beautiful, green, sprawling land of old-growth timber, now more closely resembled the bristly black back of a rhino pig. Miraculous pockets of green remained in freakish clumps or lines where the vagaries of the vortex had spared them, but most was now a charred, smoldering landscape as far northwest as the eye could see. Denser smoke still choked the sky in the far distance, fed by the awesome firestorm Lieutenant Reddy’s air attack the previous night had sparked. Nothing could have survived in the path of the monster the fire became, and Shinya doubted any of the Doms that came so close to retaking Waterford had lived.
They’ll be lucky to save Bray itself, he thought, unless the rains come to its rescue or the wind shifts back on itself. Shinya was . . . horrified by the sheer scope of destruction, and suspected their allies would be none too pleased, but he knew Captain Reddy’s cousin and Dennis Silva—of course Silva had been involved!—had done the only thing they could to ensure the forces fighting in New Dublin weren’t cut off from Cork, or attacked from the rear. That didn’t mean he was unaffected by what he saw. Tamatsu Shinya had viewed many horrors in this terrible war, and though the dead valley couldn’t compare to the countless dead people he’d seen, it struck him in a visceral, almost-prescient way that deeply disturbed him.
Adding to that discomfort, all the long day he h
adn’t known what became of Reddy and Silva after their flight to check on the situation at New Dublin ended with a terse “bats outta hell” sent by Silva’s erratic Morse, and he’d been surprised how concerned it made him. They’d lost so much in this bizarre war, but he’d come to truly believe Silva was indestructible. And there was the issue of Captain Reddy’s cousin to consider. The captain had become such a source of moral strength to the western allies, not to mention these new ones in the east, some of that . . . aura . . . had been bound to rub off on his cousin to some degree, he supposed. How much was uncertain, but with Captain Reddy so far beyond help or even communication, and his fate utterly unknown, the possible loss of the young aviator so closely connected to his “clan” had caused a notably chilling effect aboard the ship beyond what he would’ve expected. It was . . . odd. Adar was unquestionably Chairman of the Grand Alliance, but whether he realized it or not, or even wanted it, Matthew Reddy had become “royalty” of a sort, and that status extended to his “family.”
Finally, shortly before, a courier arrived from Cork on horseback with the latest intelligence via Sor-Lomaak, describing the battle at New Dublin and the evolving situation there. Included was a brief statement that Reddy, Silva, and Lawrence had survived the downing of their plane. Reddy had been taken to Salaama-Na with a concussion, but Silva and Lawrence had vanished into the swirl of battle. Shinya was relieved but still disturbed. It looked like the battle in New Dublin might require a costly frontal assault to finish, and he was anxious to get there and see the ground for himself. He was tired, his division was tired, and they had a long, long way to go.
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