Firestorm d-6

by Taylor Anderson

  “Just Grik… excrement, Colonel,” said Bekiaa. Her tail swished. “They abandoned a lot of their artillery, though. Orders from Colonel Grisa of the Ninth Aryaal behind us is not to destroy the guns, we might use them. Even if we don’t, they’ll certainly be easier to salvage on their carriages.”

  “True.” Flynn rubbed his jaw. “Look, maybe I’m paranoid, but it wouldn’t be the first time the flyboys missed something. They have to key on movement like the rest of us, and it’s a lot harder to see when you’re moving yourself.”

  “The Third Maa-ni-lo Caav, under Cap-i-taan Saachic, scouted the whole area carefully this morning, and their… me-naaks did not alert,” Saaran reminded him thoughtfully, “but with the scent so thick, they may not have.” They used a vaguely similar, if smaller-and much more agreeable-version of “meanies” on the Great South Island to track game, and Saaran was familiar with them. They weren’t “pets” per se, but they did respond to affection and familiarity. Saaran respected the larger beasts’ capabilities but had no desire to befriend one.

  “Yeah, but this valley is just too good a place to put cork in the bottle-hell, the Grik were here!” He shrugged. “I feel sorta like I’m on the conn tower of the old S-19 in the bottom of a big trough with all the hatches open.”

  “I agree,” Bekiaa said, a little edgy. “As you say, something stinks here-besides the waste. But the pickets move all the way to the crests”-she pointed north and south-“and see no movement.”

  “Hmm. I hate to string the poor guys out that far, where those damn Griklets might gang up on ’em, but signal the pickets to drop over the crest-in pairs-and see what they can over there.”

  “We might not hear shots, or even see the puffs of smoke,” Saaran reminded him. “They certainly won’t be able to signal us visually.”

  “Then they’ll just have to haul their asses to where we or other pickets can see or hear ’em if they spot anything,” Billy said. “Pass the word back to Grisa that he might want to do the same.” He looked back as far as he could see. His and Grisa’s regiments were fully committed to the valley now, but the rest of the division wasn’t yet. Was that good or bad? Both the Amalgamated and the 9th Aryaal were well trained, and the 9th was a hardened, veteran force. If this was a trap, could two thousand stand against whatever might be assembled against them? It occurred to him with a chill that if his instincts were correct, the Grik thought they could handle the entire division!

  “Okay,” he said, a little tentatively, “I want another runner to suggest to Grisa that our two regiments go from column into line, act like we smell a rat. If the Grik are up to something, maybe that’ll prod them into showing us what it is. If they attack down one of these slopes, we can funnel the follow-on regiments in behind our lines.”

  “What if they attack down both mountains?” Bekiaa asked.

  “Then we’re screwed… but maybe the rest of the division can block the valley behind us, and we can retreat back to them.” He shrugged. “Prob’ly nothin’, anyway, just a superstitious old pigboater!”

  They continued to advance a short distance until Grisa’s reply arrived. Apparently, he was superstitious too and fully endorsed the scheme. If nothing happened, the worst that would occur was perhaps an hour’s delay in their advance.

  “Just a few minutes until the planes,” Flynn said, as much to himself as to Bekiaa who remained beside him. “If we do poke a hornet’s nest, maybe they’ll see it before it hits us.” He raised his voice. “Rangers!” he yelled, followed by other shouts up and down the column, crying out to their various companies or batteries. “Halt! Action left! Column into line by files…” He waited while his command was relayed and the appropriate drum cadence rumbled. “Execute!” (He’d always thought it was stupid to punctuate a command with the word “march”-particularly when troops were already marching.)

  Despite the rocky, uneven ground, NCOs scampered out to the left, looking back at the troops, and the column of Lemurians that had been marching four abreast transformed into a battle line facing southwest, two ranks deep.

  “Batteries! Action left!”

  The “Gun ’Cats” wheeled their palkas to the right until their pieces were even with the infantry line; then the beasts were halted while the long, twin shafts were unhooked from either side of them. The animals were then moved to what was now the “rear,” where they were joined by more palkas pulling similarly hitched ammunition limbrs. The new twelve-pounders had single, “stock trail” carriages that hitched directly to the limbers, which were in turn drawn by a pair of palkas, but they’d been considered too heavy for the rough mountain trails.

  In moments, thirty-six guns in six batteries were crewed and pointed up the slope of the mountainous ridge to the south, and two thousand Lemurians from the 1st Amalgamated and 9th Aryaal stood prepared for battle. Colonel Flynn studied the crest through his binoculars, but so far, there’d been no response to their maneuver. In the sudden near silence, he heard the sound of approaching planes.

  “It’s about damn time!” he said as the four-ship formation swooped low over what had been the head of the column, and obviously seeing its deployment, banked left and climbed to investigate the flank. “This is probably all for nothing,” he admitted sheepishly to Bekiaa. “Everybody always says I give those Grik bastards too much credit for brains, but I spent some time talking to Rolak’s pet, Hij Geeky… or whatever.” He swatted at a mosquito. “He ain’t a genius, and he’s weird as hell, but he’s no dummy, you know? Anyway, maybe I’m bein’ a dope, but I didn’t last this long…” He stopped. A tiny, distant puff of smoke drifted up out of the trees; then another. “Pickets, I bet,” he murmured. Several more puffs appeared, but they never heard the sound of the shots over the diminishing engine noises. The planes must have seen as well, because they banked further, aiming for the crest of the mountain just west of Flynn’s Rangers. Barely an instant after the “Nancys” cleared that crest, the entire top of the mountain seemed to explode as hundreds of gouts of flame stabbed upward, shrouded in dense gray-white smoke. Two of the planes instantly crumpled and fell. One spiraled down, out of control, and painted a smear of orange fire and greasy black smoke on the skyline. A single ship staggered on, trailing smoke.

  “Sonuva bitch!” Billy yelled, just as the thunderous reports of the enemy weapons began to reach them. They would echo in the valley for some time. “I wish for once I didn’t have to be right about how shitty a thing can turn! What were those things?”

  “I would say they were either cannon on the extreme opposite slope, or they have something similar to our mortars for firing a heavy load of canister straight up. Either way, the range cannot be great,” Saaran said.

  “Great enough,” Flynn seethed. “I hope that one plane is able to report, because whatever did that wasn’t here this morning. The Cav would’ve seen them.” The sporadic musket fire from the retreating pickets was diminishing. Either they were breaking contact-or being wiped out. “And whatever the hell else is up there all of a sudden.” He looked around.

  “Colonel!” Bekiaa suddenly cried, pointing at the mountains to the north. There were small puffs of smoke there as well!

  “That… ain’t good, huh? I bet this is how Custer felt.”

  “How is that, Colonel?” Saaran asked.

  “Like pukin’.”

  “Who is Custer?” asked Bekiaa.

  “A dead idiot,” Flynn said. Suddenly, the thunder echoing in the valley took on a different, more strident tone, with the power and malevolence of a typhoon sea. He’d heard this thunder before, just prior to the Grik assault on the south wall of Baalkpan. It was the mind-numbing, terrifying sound of thousands of Grik, roaring, screaming, pounding weapons on their shields. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “Except we ain’t gonn be dead idiots, see? Not if it kills us! We might still wind up dead-and I can live with that-so long as we’re dead heroes! I didn’t quit my sugar boat and join the Army to be remembered as the biggest militar
y dunce of the war!”

  “What shall we do?” Saaran asked, thrown a little by Flynn’s contradictory comments.

  “Rangers!” Flynn roared in response. “From line into column to your left… execute!” Immediately, the nervous and confused, but motivated troops, re-formed their column, facing the direction they’d come.

  Bekiaa had echoed the order like all the other company commanders. Technically, Saaran was senior, but here on land, they both knew who was really in charge of “their” company. She looked at Flynn. “What are we doing?”

  “We’re going to run back there and double up with the Ninth, facing north. Then, if I can get Grisa to agree, we’ll try to ease back and form an arrowhead-shaped front with the First B’mbaado deploying from what will then be our right, and the third Sular extending Grisa’s left flank to the mountains. Eventually, as we suck the devils down, we’ll fall back into a continuous line and the other regiments behind us can reinforce as necessary! We’ll get ’em into a stand-up fight on our terms instead of givin’ them the ambush they wanted!”

  Bekiaa glanced at the timber-cloaked mountains, wondering how far down the slopes the hidden enemy had advanced. “If we have the time,” she said, her tail swishing nervously behind her.

  About then, more huge billows of smoke shrouded the opposing mountains as maybe a hundred guns commenced an erratic fire.

  “That’s right, Captain. If we have the time.” Flynn raised his voice once more. “Artillery will return fire at the enemy smoke, then retire behind the infantry. Spike your guns if you can’t move ’em. Rangers! At the double time… march!” He saw Saaran begin to whirl and follow his company. “Saaran!” he shouted, and the brown and white ’Cat turned.

  “Sir?”

  Heavy roundshot began falling in the valley, followed by the heaviest rumble yet. Most fell short, but some was unnervingly close for a first attempt. Shards of rock and clouds of brown-black dust exploded from the iron spheres when they struck and bounded visibly on.

  “Get your blotchy Navy ass out of here!”

  Saaran blinked with fury.

  “Don’t even start,” Flynn warned, “you’re the bravest ’Cat on the island! But in case that plane didn’t make it, or transmit, I need you to take the word, personally, to Queen Maraan that we’re about to have a hell of a fight on our hands!” The first trickle of sprinting, howling Grik finally appeared at the edge of the woods about four hundred yards to the south. The artillery that hadn’t already limbered up, nearly half, fired into them and the forest beyond, the guns jumping against their springy trail shafts and rolling backward-where impatient hands waited to hitch them to palkas. “Tell her I think we’ve set the hook pretty hard, and a little help would be appreciated. Also, unless the flyboys have been making up fairy tales, the fact this bunch is here probably means there ain’t really doodly in front of General Alden, no matter what it looks like! Got that?”

  “Ay, ay, sir! If you… insist it must be I who goes!”

  More roundshot struck, some among the artillery palkas, and the huge beasts screamed shrilly in agony and terror as swas unnewere sprayed with rock or iron fragments and others were simply shattered. A red mist flecked Saaran’s white fur.

  “I do! Now git!”

  With a lingering glance at Bekiaa, Saaran raced off.

  “If they send any more planes up this way, tell ’em to watch their ass!” Flynn yelled after him, then looked at Bekiaa. She and several of her company, all sailors or Marines from TF Garrett, remained with him as the rest of the company trotted away. Flynn looked at the “Gun ’Cats,” still wrestling with maybe a dozen guns and their wounded or balky animals.

  “Leave ’em, fellas!” he shouted. “Spike ’em and go!” A solid mass of Grik was now descending as if being poured from the tops of the mountains. Crossbow bolts flew thick.

  “If you don’t want to be a ‘dead idiot,’ Colonel, I recommend we do the same,” Bekiaa said sharply.

  “Oh, all right. Just tryin’ to be the last, like in the movies, you know? We’re all gonna be heroes outta this one!”

  “I for one cannot ‘live with being a dead hero,’ and the ‘last’ ones here are not going to survive.”

  Flynn looked at the few remaining Gun ’Cats, utterly fixated on saving their weapons, oblivious to orders or danger. “Say, I bet you’re right. Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  “Just what the hell’s going on up there?” General Pete Alden demanded angrily.

  “It’s… confusing still, General,” Lord General Rolak replied. The overall commander and some of his personal staff (he’d temporarily swiped Alan Letts to lead it), as well as the division commanders of Task Force West (TFW), were under the protection of a field tent as a coastal squall lashed the plain around them. Those leaders included Rolak, General Rin-Taaka-Ar of the 1st Marine Division, (1st and 3rd Marines, and the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, with the 4th, 6th, and 7th Aryaal attached) and General Taa-leen of the 5th “Galla” Division, composed of the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 10th Baalkpan, as well as the 5th and 6th B’mbaado. Rolak was in charge of this oddly shaped I Corps. Outside, other staff, as well as some of the regimental commanders and a security company from the 1st Marines, stood stoically watching in the rain.

  “Well, get it unconfused, fast!” Pete demanded.

  “We’re trying, sir,” Alan said. Pete’s borrowed “chief of staff” looked pretty rough. He hadn’t slept much over the last few weeks, and it was beginning to show. He had his “combat experience” now, and he’d learned an awful lot about logistics in the field. When this campaign was over, he’d decided to return to his old job in Baalkpan. Not because he couldn’t take it; he’d finally proven to his own satisfaction that he could-despite the daily assaults on life, limb, fair skin, and sanity. But he’d seen just how important it was for him to start a real, live, staff college. This war was growing beyond what a meager handful of talented “logistics types” could handle, and they needed more support personnel even worse than they needed more troops.

  “Something big popped in front of Second Corps; something recon didn’t detect. Only one of our air patrol ships made it back, and it was shot to pieces. No radio, spotter dead. The pilot said it was as if the whole mountain ‘shot at them’ all at once.”

  “Artillery?” Rolak asked.

  Alan shrugged. “My guess is something more like mortar tubes stuffed with junk, by what the pilot said. Anyway, he also saw ‘swarms of Grik’ jumping right up out of the ground and running to the attack.”

  “They must have been camouflaged, so the recon flights and scouts didn’t see ’em. Damn, I never would’ve thought it!”

  “Hij Geerki has hinted that, after the Battle of Baalkpan, some in their leadership developed… radical views,” Rolak reminded him.

  “Sure, but he didn’t know what they’d do, or even if they’d get to live,” Pete growled. “I guess they did. That damn ‘General Esshk,’ at least.”

  “So it would seem.”

  “What else do we know? I mean, now that some Grik have conjured up an imagination, what’s it going to cost us? What kind of crack have Second Corps and Safir-Maraan got their tails stuck in?”

  “Reports are just now coming in from her HQ,” Alan said, reading a dripping message form passed to him by an aide. “Oh crap. They nearly got sucked into an ambush… here,” he said, stepping to a damp map laid out on a table under the dripping canvas above. “In this pass, or valley-whatever it is. Pretty high. Anyway, somebody must’ve smelled a rat, because the first two regiments, the Amalgamated and the Ninth Aryaal, deployed about the time the recon flight got hammered. The combination of those two things must’ve tripped the trap the Grik must’ve hoped would catch the whole division, maybe the whole corps.” His brows arched. “Lucky. Anyway, those two regiments pulled back and formed with others behind them to create a division-size front across the valley, with fairly secure flanks. General-Queen-Maraan’s moving up now to support what’s shaping in
to a knock-down drag-out.”

  “Enemy numbers?”

  “Best guess is twenty-five to thirty thousand. You know how it is-it’s not as if you can count ’em when they’re all gaggled up.” Alan watched Pete’s expression morph from shock and horror to concern, and finally, tentative confidence. They’d faced worse odds before; II Corps apparently had a good position, and nearly all its eight thousand troops carried muskets with bayonets. Some had rifles. It would be a hell of a fight, one for the books, but the Corps should survive.

  Pete swore and stared hard at the map. “Okay, I can see that… but why? And where’d the bastards come from? I mean, recon this morning showed about as many Grik in front of us as would be there if those attacking Second Corps had come down. Hell, our spotters saw them come down!”

  “ ‘Why’ is obvious, General,” Lord Rolak grumbled, his old eyes also exploring the map. “To strike a decisive blow. Their attacks on us have delayed our advance but have nearly bled out the forces opposing us… and still we advance. Their ‘straa-ti-gees’ have changed, even improved in terms of maneuver, but the ‘taac-tics’ remain much the same. They cannot cope with our training, discipline, and modern weapons in an open-field contest.” He blinked a Lemurian shrug and added a human one for emphasis. “They try something different… significant in itself, hoping we’ll grind to a halt and lick our wounds-further delay our push on Colombo. They fight for time, and that’s another… straa-ti-gee I would never have credited them with.”

  “That is significant… if true, and I’m inclined to agree it is. Damn. I hate smart Grik!”

  “Perhaps too smart for their own good,” Alan med.

  “What?”