Deadly Shores

by Taylor Anderson

  * * *

  “Jeez! Look at that!” Orrin Reddy shouted at his OC through the plane’s voice tube. He’d seen battles from the air before, first against the Japanese in the Philippines, then against the Doms on New Ireland, but never had they been so concentrated and on such a scale. The whole city seemed surrounded by a gigantic, rising doughnut of smoke, and he and his two squadrons of Nancys, racing in at low altitude after a swing around the bay, were headed right for it.

  “I say jeez too—for all the Grikbirds!” came the reply.

  Orrin sobered. Seepy was right. There were hundreds of the damn things, rising above the smoke and kiting on thermals over the city like monstrous reptilian vultures. “Yeah, and we have to run interference.” Orrin was personally leading the 9th Bomb Squadron on this mission. Their ship and Lieutenant Ninaar-Rin-Ar’s (CO of the 11th Bomb Squadron) were the only ones armed with .50s in the nose. Every plane in both squadrons had Blitzer Bugs, but they’d be of limited use on a bomb run. But four more ships had been designated as “top cover” for the attack, and would follow Orrin and Ninaar straight in to blow a hole for the others.

  “Remind everybody to be extra careful where they drop!” Orrin told Seepy one more time. The two bombs each Nancy carried were terrible things—one hundred pounds of gasoline mixed with obstinately flammable sap from the gimpra tree. The stuff didn’t stay mixed very well, but it didn’t really have to. Detonation, or a high-speed collision with the ground would recombine the substances sufficiently to provide an expanding inferno of sticky gobbets of flaming sap that could land as far as seventy-five yards from the detonation point. Other compounds had been considered, of course, as had airbursts, but fusing remained an issue in the second case, and in the first—what was the point? In any event, every aviator in the 3rd Naval Air Wing was more terrified of accidentally dropping one of the weapons on his own people than he was of death. Orrin was confident there’d be no accidents.

  “Here we go!” he announced. A gaggle of Grikbirds had noticed them and was swooping down in front of them, still just above the battlesmoke. Ninaar was off his left wing and Orrin glanced down. He had his landmarks, and stabbing flashes of cannon fire confirmed his line. His eyes twitched to his mirror to confirm that both squadrons remained tucked in a tight column of twos behind the lead ships. As soon as he gave the order, Seepy would press his telegraph key and hold it down—until he had to start shooting. That would send the bombers diving through the smoke, and into the attack.

  “Tally ho!” he shouted, and Seepy jammed his key. Immediately, eighteen Nancys dove, and Orrin centered his crude sights on the Grikbirds ahead and fired.

  * * *

  “Their artillery is disturbingly effective, considering its size,” General Nerino observed, maintaining an urbane façade. In truth, he’d been terrified when the heretics’ shells began exploding among his advancing troops, and even disconcertingly close to him. The armies of the Holy Dominion used exploding shells in their monstrous twelve-inch mortars, but they had none of those here. They had nothing, in fact, that fired anything but solid shot and grape. Ramming a lit projectile down the long barrel of a field piece before firing it was considered far too dangerous and unpredictable. He wondered how his enemies had solved the problem with such apparent safety to their crews, and precision of effect. There’d been proposals that simply firing a gun would serve to ignite a fuse, he remembered, but few hereditary officers had given the notion much credibility. They might have to rethink that. At last, however, the guns had fallen silent, and his heart no longer raced as he sat on his gilded chair and watched his first shell-torn Corps, or “El Mano del Papa,” march across the broad gap to grasp the enemy at last. The red flags made a seamless, protective river of divine blood above his host, and the thundering drums echoed the pulsing rush of blood in his ears. The band advanced as well, providing a stirringly devout martial accompaniment to the dance of war. So thrilling! All his life, General Nerino had waited to see such a sight! He felt like falling to his knees and joining his priest in thanks to God and His Holiness for this opportunity.

  He might have actually done so if two gray shell bursts hadn’t suddenly, deliberately, slaughtered the noncombatant musicians.

  “Qué terriblemente grosero!” he exclaimed, stunned. Never had he imagined anyone capable of such rude behavior on a battlefield! An instant later, a great cheer built among the enemy, joined by an appalling squealing sound. Then the distant guns spat fire and smoke, and a rising crackle of musketry erupted.

  “They do not even wait for the exchange of volleys!” the priest seethed. “They are animals, my general!”

  “Perhaps not all,” Nerino said defensively. “The enemy army is a mixed force. Perhaps many are amateurs. To foul their weapons at such a hopeless distance certainly does not seem very professional!” The standard musket of the Holy Dominion was wildly inaccurate and couldn’t strike any specific man-size target beyond seventy or eighty paces. Nerino had no reason to suspect Imperial muskets were any better, and frankly suspected the Imperials had armed what he considered their animalistic allies with spears at best. It never occurred to him that the Lemurian “Americans” might have their own, even better weapons. “Our noble Salvadores will show them what discipline in the ranks may achieve.” He paused. “But what is that absurd buzzing sound? Not more of their odd flying machines, I hope! Surely we have sufficient dragons above us to protect against any mischief they may cause?” He turned to his aide, the sound growing more insistent. “Captain, what . . .” Something flashed in the corner of his eye, and he turned back to the battlefield in time to see a great, sprawling mushroom of fire, crowned by greasy black smoke. “What?” he murmured again, just as an enemy machine darted past the white smoke of battle and climbed up and away to the south. Then there was another terrible, orange flash—and another! Even from where he sat, the screams were clear. Obviously, the heretics were dropping some kind of bomb, in much the same way that dragons had been taught to attack ships, but these were not the large rocks or roundshot the dragons carried, but some kind of demonic incendiary device.

  “They are burning our army!” Nerino shrieked, standing from his chair. Whump! Whump! Whump! went the bombs and more screams mounted, even while the fire from the enemy earthworks redoubled. More flying machines roared by, rising in the sky. Nerino saw one, diving down to the north. Two pointed cylinders fell away and tumbled to the ground, igniting among his terrified, surging troops. He continued watching as it too pulled up and away, but then saw several dragons slash into the thing and carry it tumbling to the ground.

  “They only have the two bombs each,” he cried. “Doubtless, they go back for more, but it will take time. We must push the next Hand of the Pope forward immediately!”

  “It is already formed, my general!” the aide assured him.

  “Send it!” Nerino waved his hands manically. “Send everything! I want a general attack around the entire perimeter at the rush!”

  * * *

  “Wow,” said First Sergeant Spook. “Lookie at ’em burn!”

  “They’re not all burnin’,” Blas muttered. “Them flyboys were maybe a little too careful not to hit us. A buncha Doms were already past the drop point!” Even as she watched, a second Nancy staggered in the sky as a pair of Grikbirds fastened onto its port wing and sent it into a helpless spin. It impacted on the other side of the line of fire, and as far as she could tell, the Grikbirds never let go. She felt bad for the brave aviators she’d just seen die, but she had more pressing problems. Thousands of Doms were literally running at them now, partly to escape the fire, no doubt, but also to come to grips with their tormenters. She raised her voice. “Let ’em have it! Keep firing! Chew ’em up! Kill ’em!”

  “Load double canister! Load and hold!” the section chief to her left cried out, and she nodded on hearing his words. The Doms were coming fast, and the lieutenant’s guns would get only one more shot
before the wave hit. Clearly he meant to make the most of it. At that moment, another rider galloped past on the road behind. “Commence firing mortars!” he yelled, over and over. Almost instantly, the distinctive toomp! sounds stuttered behind the lines. Blas turned back to her troops, tightening her helmet strap. “Fix bayonets!” she trilled.

  “Comin’ just like Grik!” Spook shouted over the growing roar.

  “No! These Doms have minds, and they’ll fight with ’em—if we don’t change ’em first. Take your Bee Ayy Arr and cover the gunners after they fire. Maybe they can keep shootin’ if you keep the Doms off ’em!”

  “Ay, ay, Cap-i-taan Blas,” Spook replied, then blinked irony. “Watch yer tail!”

  Blas unslung her Baalkpan arsenal musket and affixed the bayonet. In seconds, she’d be needed more on the firing line than standing back, giving orders. She disagreed with Spook in more ways than she’d had time to explain, however. Wild as the Dom charge had become, no similar Grik assault ever came at her with more than a single thought behind the onslaught. These Doms, these men, each had their own thoughts just as surely as her troops had theirs. Did that mean they’d be easier to break—or fight even more ferociously than any Grik she’d ever faced? On the other hand, from what she’d heard, the Grik were fighting with their minds now too. . . . Added to this was the conflict many Lemurians faced, a lingering discomfort at the prospect of killing humans with the same ruthlessness they killed Grik. It was hard sometimes to reconcile what this war had become with how it started. “Shields up!” she roared at her Marines, who still carried the things, and stepped into the line. “Brace for it!”

  Horns sounded and loud cries of “Alto! Alto!” rose above the tumult, even as the defenders continued pouring in loads of “buck and ball” at a mere thirty yards or so. Sluggishly, like an animal goaded beyond endurance, the charging horde managed to arrest its sprint and try to dress its ranks in the face of the withering fire. “Escopetas aplomo!” came another repeated shout. One officer, just across from Blas, never finished the command, thrown back by the heavy slug of a militiaman’s rifle. Around him, however, gasping, bloodied Doms raised their muskets and took a wavering aim.

  “Down!” Blas shrieked, ducking behind a Marine’s angled shield.

  “Disparar!”

  A ragged but thundering volley churned at the earthworks, pitching Marines backward amid a hail of vipping balls and screaming rocks and gravel. A ball whacked the shield just in front of Blas’s face and moaned away overhead, and just as suddenly as the volley came, the screams of her own troops filled the air. She noticed a stinging pain in her left thigh and glanced down to see the twisted tang of a buttplate, a jagged splinter of wood still attached, sticking out of her leg. She’d been hit by a piece of a musket, struck by a Dom ball. She yanked it out with a gush of breath.

  “Up! Up! Fire into them! Let ’em have it!” she roared in that peculiar Lemurian way that carried her voice so far. Immediately, those around her started firing again, tearing paper cartridges with their teeth, pouring powder, and forcing .60-caliber balls topped with three pieces of buckshot down their barrels with iron rammers. Even as they died, the Doms were obeying unheard commands to draw their long, swordlike bayonets, and jam them in the muzzles of their muskets. Unlike the defenders with their socket bayonets, the Doms would no longer be able to fire their weapons, but soon, a good pike or spear might be just as dangerous. Another horn blew, and the Doms lowered their weapons with a desperate yell and charged. With a thundering crash, they slammed into the upraised shields of the Marines, and the first rank bowed back under the blow. The second rank stabbed at the enemy over the shields with their bayonets, while the third rank kept firing. Spook’s BAR opened up with a Wham! Wham! Wham! staccato, punctuated by another blast of double canister to the left, its yellowish smoke swirling and mixing with the white smoke of the muskets. Almost unheard, the stutter of exploding mortar bombs began.

  Pushed into the second rank, Blas stabbed at anything that showed itself beyond the shields. The sharp point of her bayonet skated off a nose and found the wide eye of a Dom. She literally felt the scream through the wood and metal of her weapon. That, of all the events she’d ever experienced in combat, sickened her, but there was no time to contemplate it. Killing was killing, after all, and nothing she did could possibly compare to the agony the firebombs had caused. She fought on, quickly losing the extra breath to shout any orders, but further such were pointless now at any rate. Her whole world became the thrust and parry of the bayonet, the grunting of Marines straining to hold the shield wall, the screams and wails of the wounded and dying, and the foamy sweat that leached down from the leather band in her helmet to sting her eyes.

  It seemed to her that they were holding, even though the greater mass of the enemy corps must have chosen her section of the line to concentrate, but she had to wonder how the rest of the line was faring. Only the Marines, and a few other Lemurian regiments had shields. They were heavy and cumbersome, and would only turn musket balls at a certain angle or until badly dented. The Imperials didn’t like them at all. She knew they’d been mostly done away with in the West, against the Grik, but the troops there had breech-loading rifles. Even then, recent experiences had indicated that shields still had a place. They were helping here, no question, and if the pressure might not be so great on other parts of the line, she suspected they were having a bad time without the extra protection.

  “Mortars are gettin’ louder!” a ’Cat next to her huffed, breaking her metronomic reverie.

  “They’re walking back this way,” Blas confirmed breathlessly. “The fires from the bombs must be going out, and I bet the Doms’re sending more troops at us here. Mortars are prob’ly trying to break ’em up!”

  “Well,” the ’Cat—a corporal—gasped, “they gonna hafta get through the ones we killin’ now to get at us!” Spook’s BAR was hammering away, and the pair of guns he protected thundered again. More guns were firing now, Blas suddenly realized, meaning the pressure must be easing a bit—somewhere besides here, anyway. “They ain’t gonna like it if they do,” she promised grimly.

  * * *

  For the next three-quarters of an hour, the battle convulsed like a tortured snake all around the perimeter, except along the bayside docks. Kari Faask was practically hopping up and down, trying to see through the smoke obscuring the eastern line. The Doms were attacking everywhere, but it was at that point that the heaviest blow had fallen—perhaps twenty thousand troops funneled into a front barely a mile wide. Of course, nowhere near twenty thousand had made it all the way to the Allied defenses. The mortars still churned the rear ranks of the second corps, and shredded the bodies strewn across the field behind it.

  “Mortars say they runnin’ low on aammo!” A comm-’Cat fretted, approaching the command staff that had remained on the roof throughout the fight. “Dom guns have opened up again, even wit their own troops under the shot, an’ its dis-ruptin’ replenishment!”

  “Where’s Colonel Blair?” Shinya demanded.

  “He tryin’ to bring up the reserve brigade o’ Impie M’reens to reinforce Cap-i-taan Blas.”

  “He had better hurry. What’s Lieutenant Reddy’s status?”

  “He takin’ off again now, rearmed an’ refueled. But he down to he call ‘baker’s dozen’ ships. Grikbirds chase ’im all the way back to bay. He say there maybe not so many Grikbirds now, though, either. They Blitzer Bugs shoot ’em down in bunches.”

  Shinya nodded. They’d seen that; quite a few of the terrifying creatures had even fallen in the city itself—along with several planes.

  “We, Kari and I, ought to be helping,” Fred stated grimly.

  “Are you fit to fly?” Shinya demanded. “Even if you are, there are no extra aircraft. You are certainly not fit for the firing line. I honor your desire to fight, Lieutenant. Believe me, I share it most strongly. But we must all do what we are able, or o
ur duty requires. Right now, your duty requires you to heal—and advise me on matters concerning aviation. Tell me, what should Lieutenant Reddy do now?”

  Surprised, and a little suspicious that Shinya was only pretending to need his counsel, Fred concentrated. “Mr. Reddy can’t target the enemy infantry this time,” he said. “It’s too closely engaged. I’d suggest he concentrate on the Dom artillery and reserves.” He paused. “If he sees anything that might be General Nerino’s command post, he might take a whack at that.”

  “An excellent recommendation, Lieutenant,” Shinya said. He turned to the comm-’Cat. “Send it.”

  “Ay, ay.”

  * * *

  “What is happening? I cannot see!” General Nerino thundered, rising to pace and stare at the unprecedented chaos of the battlefield, before self-consciously returning to his gilded chair.

  “I do not know, my general,” his aide almost wailed. “The smoke is too thick to see even the signal flags. The mortars . . .” He paused. Hundreds, thousands of deadly little bombs still blanketed the Army of God, sometimes dangerously close to where he stood. They had to come from some kind of mortar, though he had no idea how the heretics could have shipped so many of the monstrous weapons so far, and brought them ashore. Scouting lancers had described small, lightweight tubes within the enemy positions in past days, but surely they could not achieve the range and destructive power of the rain of bombs he was watching! “It must be mortars, my general, though how . . .”