In any event, when 12th Division caught up, they’d all push toward the temple together. And the top third of the temple itself was finally visible, barely a mile away, its oddly dark, stepped slopes rising the equivalent of only six or seven stories. Blas reflected again that it seemed fairly small for such a large city, particularly compared to others they’d heard of. She wondered why.
“More Doms!” somebody cried, and Blas peered over the rubble to see a solid block of yellow-coated troops surging into the avenue ahead. Many went sprawling under rifle fire even as they ran, and Blas shouted out to the section chief of the two full-sized 12 pdrs positioned in the street to stand by. He nodded briskly and brought his guns to the ready, crews stretching lanyards.
Blas’s eyes narrowed when she noted that the facings on the enemy uniforms were red. “Blood Drinkers,” she snarled, and Sister Audry and Sergeant Major Koratin rose to look for themselves. Even Audry now understood there was no redemption for Blood Drinkers, but absolutely no one could’ve expected what happened next. A sudden stream of smaller figures started running out in the street in front of the Doms, doubling their ranks about forty yards across every few moments. A couple fell to reactive shots, one kicking violently as it flailed on the ground, most of its head blown away, but other forms raced past, unheeding, to join the thickening line.
“My God!” Sister Audry wailed, and the nearby shooting swiftly dwindled to a feeble patter. Furious firing continued on the parallel streets, howitzers still barked on rooftops, and mortars fell beyond their view, but their crews couldn’t see what they now saw. Standing in front of the Blood Drinkers still deploying behind them, grimly holding pikes aloft that were far too big for most to handle, were more than a hundred small children, and more rushing to join them. Blas stood. Sister Audry rose beside her, but it looked like Arano Garcia had to keep her steady. As if in a trance, Sergeant Major Koratin strode slowly out to the middle of the street beside the guns.
The children stirred in the center of their line and a young man in the attire of a Blood Drinker general stepped out between them. Blas hissed.
“You know him?” Captain Ixtli asked, rushing up to her.
“Yes,” Blas ground out. “Thaat’s Gener-aal Allegriaa, Maytaa’s XO—and a son of Don Hernaan’s!”
“Of course he is,” Garcia seethed. “Only he and his wicked offspring are capable of such depravity!”
“I doubt it,” Blas replied dully.
“Ah!” Allegria shouted cheerfully, seeing her. “It is you, Major Blas! I’d so hoped to meet you today. Yours has been a laudable effort indeed. General Mayta told me so himself. He admires you tremendously, you know.” The voice turned harsh. “For an animal.” He gestured around, and his expression became cheerful again. “What do you think of my militia? They’re not really ready for the firing line, I fear. Too small for modern weapons. But they’re quite committed, I assure you, and each has given his or her life to His Supreme Holiness! Just look at them, staring you down, pikes at the ready! Even the little girls are a credit to the Holy Dominion!” He feigned thoughtfulness. “But perhaps it is they who have halted your advance! Are you all cowards, afraid of children, or merely sentimental? If the latter, I suppose it was somewhat impolite of me to insert such an awkward moment into our otherwise deliciously straightforward battle.”
His eyes radiated astonishment. “I’ve heard animals have been known to demonstrate sentiment toward their young. Even the young of other species. Quite surprising, actually. Tell me, Major Blas, does my militia give you pause? Do they fill you with fear, or pity? Should I send them away, for the sake of fair play”—his voice lowered—“or order them to attack?” He chuckled, knowing he was succeeding in buying the time he desperately needed, while simultaneously tearing the inertia out of the attack and the hearts out of everyone watching. He obviously didn’t feel the horror he inspired but knew it was real, and probably more effective than he’d ever dreamed.
Blas didn’t respond to Allegria’s taunts and every fiber in her being was screaming at her to order the cannons to fire, to end this farce and sweep the unimaginable, unreal ghastliness of such evil, vile things hiding behind younglings from her sight. But those were younglings over there, and the guns would kill them too. There’d been a time when she’d have done it without thinking, before her wounded inner self had a chance to mend a little. Still . . . Sister Audry couldn’t possibly give the order, and Garcia probably wouldn’t. Ixtli might, but it wasn’t his job. Blas wasn’t sure even Silva would do it if he were here. It all fell down to her, again, and her soul cried out in torment because at that moment, with more and more Blood Drinkers clogging their path to victory and the battle—perhaps the entire war in the East—in the balance, somebody had to do it now and she just . . . couldn’t.
“General Mayta believes you deserve study, Major Blas, and I agree,” Allegria shouted. “I think we simply must find out how capable of sentiment you are. Mis hijos,” he called around him in a kindly, gentle voice, “attack the heretics. Kill them all.” He said the last in English so all the Allies would hear, but the children understood. With what looked like perfect determination, the children—almost two hundred now—lowered their pikes with a shrill shout. Most had to hold the weapons toward the middle to balance their weight. With a louder but still obscenely soothing voice, Allegria called out again and the children marched forward.
Sister Audry was standing on top of the rubble now, holding her hands out. “No! No! For God’s sake, children, please! Save yourselves, move aside. We mean you no harm!”
Her plea had no effect and the nightmare marched closer with every step. General Allegria began to laugh.
Blas stared longingly at the twin 12 pdrs in the street, aimed and stoked with canister, practically begging to be unleashed. But their crews were just as horrified as anyone, helplessly watching their own destruction play out before them in their minds. Blas saw Sergeant Major Koratin then—Lord Koratin he’d once been—who’d turned to simple soldiering and away from corrupt intrigues because of his deep and genuine love for younglings. He usually hid it well, beneath his gruff facade, but his blinking now betrayed an anguish even deeper than Blas could fathom. She saw him look at Sister Audry, now screaming hysterically for the children to stop, disperse—even as those same children started chanting “Matarlos! Matarlos!” with every step. Koratin’s blinking came so fast, Blas caught only impressions of tenderness, appreciation, even sympathy. Then Koratin looked at her and very distinctly blinked protective love—from a doomed spirit that would never touch the heavens.
Abruptly, before Blas could move or even shout, Koratin turned and snatched the lanyard from a stunned cannoneer and pulled it hard. The gun roared and leaped back, the muzzle dropping away from the jet of fire, yellowish smoke, and the sheeting canister that screeched downrange to be enveloped in high-pitched squeals of pain.
Without a word or the slightest hesitation, Koratin stepped through the smoke around the blackened muzzle of the first gun, snatched the lanyard of the second, and pulled it too. Another deafening blast thundered down the lane amid more choking smoke and piercing screams. Koratin pulled his pistol. Blas first thought he’d shoot himself, but he ran forward all alone, roaring forth the torment of a shattered soul. He disappeared in the smoke. A moment later there was a quick pop! pop-pop! of a 1911 copy, then a ragged musket volley. A number of balls whined by. There was also the wrenching sound of crying, hurt, and terrified younglings, diminishing now as many—most, Blas prayed—fled back down the narrow street they came from.
Blas shook herself, clearing eyes that had gone opaque with tears, then bellowed as loud as she could, “Up! Aat ’em! Spare the younglings if you caan dodge ’em, knock ’em aside if you must, but kill those goddaamn Doms!”
Hundreds of men and ’Cats, utterly immobilized moments before, leaped out from behind what cover they’d taken and charged after Koratin. The smok
e was still dense and it got even thicker as rifles and muskets fired. Then came a roaring crash of steel on steel and men—Adults, at least, Blas bitterly corrected herself—began to scream. She knew her people were dying too, but their maddened fury would carry them through anything right now. Startled, battered Doms, who’d just taken the bitter remainder of a double dose of canister, certainly couldn’t stop them. Blas moved back to Sister Audry, who was sobbing and supported now by Ixtli and Garcia. She noted Garcia’s wretched expression and knew he was torn as much by what happened as by Sister Audry’s reaction. “Go,” Blas snapped. “Lead your men. You too, Cap-i-tan Ixtli. I’ll be along directly. First Sergeant Spook, waater for the Col-nol.”
Garcia and Ixtli hesitated, then trotted away to join the growing fight. Blas helped Audry steady Spook’s canteen as she took a sip. Finally, Audry managed to speak. “He’s dead, isn’t he? S-sergeant Koratin.”
“I expect so,” Blas replied. “An’ just as well for him. He never could’a lived with whaat he did. I couldn’t, you couldn’t, but it haad to be done. He took it off us. Did it for us.”
“Died for us,” Audry whispered low.
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t I take the Col-nol back to the gate,” Spook suggested awkwardly. “Lotsa wounded baack there’ll be glaad to see her.”
“No!” Audry snapped, suddenly forceful. “Sergeant Major Koratin took all our sins upon himself—a far better Christian than I, at that moment! I will see his work completed!” She looked at Blas. “We go forward, Major Blas. Together.”
CHAPTER 22
////// USS Maaka-Kakja
Off El Paso del Fuego
What’re we doing?” Orrin Reddy hotly asked Admiral Lelaa-Tal-Cleraan, stepping briskly onto Maaka-Kakja’s broad starboard bridgewing over the flight deck. He looked terrible, still spattered with Seepy’s or the Grikbird’s blood, and his eyes were red from the wind and hollow with exhaustion. He was too keyed up to notice how confrontational his exhaustion and frustration had made him. A harried Tex Sheider glanced up from where he was conferring with damage-control personnel. Even the thin, squirrely Chief Gilbert Yeager was there, though there was nothing wrong with his engines. Like his half brother Isak, still on Walker, the weird little guy was a whiz at coming up with unlikely fixes for things, and a lot of stuff was coming apart right now. High Admiral Jenks stood apart from them all, watching Raan-Goon burn. Her whole forward flight deck was afire and she’d turned downwind. Several escorts were alongside, their hoses helping fight her flames.
“We haave to withdraaw Maaka-Kakja and New Dublin,” Lelaa replied bitterly. “No choice. Our flight decks are too daamaged to launch and recover fighters, so we’ve lost our combaat air paatrol.” She nodded at Raan-Goon. “Our CAP—and luck—are the only things thaat kept us all from winding up like her. But the fighters were low on fuel and I haad to send them to Nicoyaa. If the Doms have more of those greater draagons, we’ve haad it.”
The big dragons, some of which actually did carry pilots—or handlers; who knew what?—had been seen by another flight of returning Nancys that got off a message just before the escorting Grikbirds mauled them. Most of the surviving Grikbirds then dashed back to shore. Regardless, there hadn’t been much warning—the one Orrin’s flight tried to relay hadn’t made much sense and came too late—and the dragon’s appearance was a big surprise. Even then, the fighter CAP butchered them, chopping up the big flying lizards almost as easily as it would be to strafe running paalkas. Orrin had been right; though the greater dragons were faster than Grikbirds, they couldn’t turn as tightly. Particularly carrying a man, or a pair of hundred-pound bombs. And large as they were, either they couldn’t soak up as much damage as one would think or they were smart enough to choose not to. A fair number dove down to the wave tops and turned back for land when they saw what was happening to the others.
There’d been a lot of them, though, too many for such short notice. Enough got through to damage the flight deck of every carrier, to varying degrees. Their bombs were pretty big compared to what Grikbirds could carry, but not very powerful; basically just contact-fused iron casings full of gunpowder. Alone, they might destroy a smaller ship or badly splinter the tough wooden flight deck of a carrier, but they couldn’t penetrate the heavy timbers to the hangar deck below. They could destroy and ignite assembled planes waiting to take off, however, and burning fuel and exploding ordnance could do a lot of damage indeed.
Raan-Goon was the worst hit, with nearly her entire wing preparing to sortie. Almost all her fighters and many of her Nancys—and their pilots—were gone, along with the forward half of her flight deck. New Dublin was hit hard as well, but didn’t have as many planes aboard and her fires were nearly out. Maaka-Kakja was luckiest. She’d been waiting to recover planes and only had a couple P-1s on catapults when the dragons struck. Despite a ferocious antiair defense with her dual purpose 4.7″s salvaged from Amagi, the ship still took five bombs. She couldn’t recover fighters until they chopped out the splintered timbers, added reinforcing, and pounded temporary plates over the wounds. Work was proceeding feverishly, but Tex and Gilbert thought it would take at least two hours before Maaka-Kakja could resume operations.
“What about Raan-Goon? What about our people ashore? We have to support them!” Orrin insisted. “I know you can’t see it from here, but Tenth, Eleventh, and Fifteenth Corps, not to mention the rest of this fleet, are in a helluva fight over there,” he added sarcastically, pointing east.
Lelaa blinked acceptance. She knew what Orrin had been through: his battered plane sank right under him as he was hauled aboard. “Raan-Goon will haave to take her chaances. She’s disabled and probably sustained more daamage thaan the Doms ever dreamed to inflict. I suspect they’ll be content with thaat. They caan’t do her much more haarm, in any event.” Her voice hardened and she blinked determination. “As for the baattle onshore, I’m quite aware how desperate it is and how baadly our troops need support from the air. No doubt you saw how busily this ship is refueling and re-aarming Naancys from all three caarriers.” Orrin had, and most of it was being done at great risk to the ground crews as well, without even hoisting the planes aboard. “We’ll continue to tend as maany as we caan, even aafter we move faarther from shore. Most, however, including all airborne pursuit planes, will haave to divert to Nicoyaa as well.”
“That’s too far,” Orrin objected.
“I agree,” Lelaa said. “Not only will faa-cilities at Nicoyaa be overtaaxed, but it’ll take longer to turn the planes around, reduce the number of sorties, and further limit how long they caan linger over the taarget. Paarti-cularly the fighters.” She glanced at Jenks, who’d finally turned to look at them, face ashen. He thinks he screwed up, Orrin realized. And maybe he did—it’s too early to say—but the decision was his. It’s his responsibility and things ain’t looking so hot. Lelaa cast her eyes down at the flight deck. “But until we caan operate fighters again, it’s the best we caan do.”
“Surs,” said Maaka-Kakja’s second lieutenant, striding out to join them. Like all the ship’s officers, the Lemurian wore whites and they contrasted sharply with her brown-and-black-striped fur. “A mess-aage from Gener-aal Shin-yaa, from his position on the southwest heights overlooking the city.”
Jenks roused himself and took the message form. After looking at it a moment, his features brightened. “General Shinya says elements of Tenth Corps, led by the Sister’s Own”—they all knew that meant Blas—“have forced their way into the city. Fifteenth Corps’ Marines have broken in as well. Both face fierce resistance but are trying to link up.” He managed a tentative smile that barely twitched his mustaches. “That’s good news, at least.” Glancing back down at the message, his brows furrowed and the smile became a frown. “On the other hand, the Clipper we sent to observe the pass reports that the tide has turned. We expected that, of course,” he added absently, then looked intently at everyone. “B
ut all the ships from La Calma, plus others that must’ve joined them, are riding the tide and will arrive shortly.” He shook his head, at a loss. “I knew they’d get word of our attack fairly quickly, but never dreamed they’d respond so fast.” He stiffened. “Unless they were ready and specifically waiting for us.”
Orrin blinked surprise in the Lemurian fashion. “Well, of course they were! I told you that’s what it looked like to me. But let me get this straight; you sent a Clipper up there? In daylight? With all these damn dragons and Grikbirds flocking around?”
“They weren’t at first, if you’ll recall,” Jenks snapped, but he sounded a little defensive. “And the Clipper is well escorted by a full squadron of pursuit planes from Nicoya.”
“A squadron we won’t have to cover my Nancys,” Orrin retorted hotly. “God knows we don’t have anything else left to hit this new fleet with when it gets here! Hibbs may’ve stopped the Dom liners around El Corazon, but he’s finished. I saw it. And you can bet the Doms’ll have more liners coming, screening those Grikbird carriers—which I can’t even guarantee we can take out from the air. Like I told you, they got armor on top too.” He looked at Lelaa. “Them an’ their swarms of Grikbirds’ll be coming for you. They ain’t near as big, but I bet they’re just as fast as this fat tub.”
“We still have USS Destroyer and USS Sword on the north side of the pass,” Tex defended. “They haven’t even been engaged, besides scattering a little Dom garrison before putting their Marines ashore.”
Orrin was thinking feverishly, grasping for an unformed notion hovering around the periphery of his mind. “That won’t do any good,” he murmured. “They’ve got lots of guns, like Hibbs, but little or no armor either. They’ll get creamed. No,” he added, voice warming, rising, “what we really need is to get all our ships the hell out of there. Evacuate the west approach to the pass completely, as fast as we can!”
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