Iron Gray Sea d-7

by Taylor Anderson

  These Grik were better trained than any they’d faced before, and they fought with greater skill. But if they’d largely learned not to wildly break, to “turn prey” in what Bradford had once coined “Grik Rout,” that ability was achieved only through greater awareness-an awareness that permitted a variety of somewhat normal, genuine fear. They didn’t break in the face of the sudden, ferocious countercharge, but they did recoil from it just enough to allow it to gain some momentum.

  Other Grik regiments pressing forward on the flanks also paused, bewildered and frightened as their comrades gave ground. That allowed other Ranger companies, Marines, and Sularans, to push back as well, and soon the Grik were falling back, still fighting savagely, all around the hill. The last few dozen grenades exploded among them, and cannon sent hoarded canister sleeting through the disconcerted ranks.

  “At ’em!” Flynn kept screaming, over and over, stabbing with his long bayonet as he’d been taught so long ago. Bekiaa appeared beside him. She’d lost her musket, but she plied her cutlass with practiced, savage ease, hewing heads and grasping, slashing arms. The Baalkpan Armory copies of the 1917 Navy cutlass were outstanding weapons. Just like those that inspired them, they were the culmination of thousands of years of human experience. Fairly short, they were handy in close quarters, but their sharp, heavy-spined blades were ideal for slashing and chopping flesh and bone. Grik swords were great for hacking or slashing too, Flynn had seen, but generally lighter and even shorter, and shaped more like a sickle or claw, so they tended to turn in the attacker’s hand if they struck another sword, shield, or even musket barrel. Bekiaa and many other veterans were well aware of this and exploited it mercilessly.

  Flynn took a clawed slash across his chest, unable to block it in time, then had the wooden forearm gnawed off his rifle while he tried to wrench it from clinging jaws. He finally yanked it free in a shower of splinters and shattered teeth and drove his bayonet through the eye of the Grik that tried to eat his gun. He thought he heard a squeal. Another lunged for him, batting at his rifle with its small shield, but Leedom drove it back against those behind it with a roar and sixteen inches of Springfield Armory steel.

  Bekiaa was down! A Grik stood over her, sword raised for the killing blow. Flynn flung his rifle at the beast and chased after it, drawing his own cutlass. He hadn’t practiced with it much, but great skill would’ve been wasted just then. The Grik deflected the thrown musket, but screeched when the cutlass tore into its chest. A blow on his helmet hammered Flynn to the ground as well, but somebody must have killed or distracted his assailant, because there was no second strike. For a moment, he was knocked back and forth on his hands and knees by the legs and feet of friend and foe alike, and couldn’t get up. Grik hind claws slashed his thigh, and he gasped. Finally, a harried ’Cat hauled him up and pushed him out of the way. He saw Leedom then, Springfield on his shoulder, dragging Bekiaa back out of the fight while firing his pistol in the crush.

  Flynn could sense the enemy was still afraid-he saw it in their wide eyes-but they just wouldn’t break. There were too many, and he was so tired! His wonderful Rangers-and all the others, of course-had done all they could. The Grik were firming up now, and his countercharge had stalled. There was nothing for it. He started to yell an order for his troops to fall back to their trenches when he suddenly heard the dull, thrumming roar of Grik horns in the distance. Obediently, but almost reluctantly, it seemed, as if the warriors themselves had known how close they were to finishing it, the Grik started backing away.

  “Don’t chase ’em, for God’s sake,” Flynn croaked. “They wanna retreat, let ’em!”

  He didn’t give the order to cease firing, however, and able to reload at last, the horribly diminished troops around him sent a patter of musketry after the Grik until they were beyond crossbow range. Few fired after that. They couldn’t have had much left to fire with.

  “All right,” he said at last, his knees turning rubbery. “Form details to get our wounded out of this mess.” He waved at the carpet of corpses strewn around. “And pick up any weapons and ammunition you can find.” He stopped a furiously blinking Sularan lieutenant who was pulling cartridge boxes off the dead. “You take charge here, son. Get somebody else to do that.” He lowered his voice. “The guys and gals love to see their officers fight, but they’d rather we tell them to do stuff like this, while we pretend to think about what’s next.”

  The lieutenant looked at him, his tail still swishing erratically from side to side, but the blinking stopped. “Yes, Col-nol,” he whispered.

  ***

  “Lord General Halik!” the warrior cried as he flung himself into the grass at Halik’s feet. “I beg to report!”

  “Rise, General Ugla,” Halik said almost mildly.

  Ugla instantly rose to his feet, perhaps surprised he still lived. “Yes, Lord General!”

  Halik looked at him, eyes steady. Ugla had reason for concern. Halik had not always been kind to those who brought ill tidings. But that was before. General Niwa had taught him a great deal. “Your assessment, General. Withhold nothing you perceive as truth.”

  “Yes, Lord General.” Ugla still paused.

  “Only your silence will anger me at this point,” Halik warned.

  Ugla removed his helmet and shook out his crest. Halik noted that it was stiff with… anger?

  “Lord General, we had them in our grasp. The prey was at bay and could not escape. It had gone to earth! It fought hard, still, and many Uul were slain. Many more would still have been lost… but we had them! Only you… Forgive me! Only the horns called us back before we gained all the prey atop that hill to feed upon!”

  Halik said nothing for a moment, but only gazed into the west. Then he looked back at Ugla and pointed his sword at the smoldering hill.

  “You are right, General. You would have had them. I know that as well, and I am… unhappy that I was forced to stop you.” He took a deep, rasping breath. “Not long ago, I wouldn’t have, no matter the cost, but the price of that stinking hill has grown too great to bear at present.” His own crest flared. “I like to believe I have grown wiser in the ways of war and I need your seasoned warriors, those that remain, for a far more important task we must set them to immediately.” He pointed back to the west. “We are out of time to pursue this sport. As you can see, the hatchling host draws near,” he said, using the somewhat derisive term he’d heard his generals use to describe the barely mature army of culls-some said-that had been bred to defend. “There are their banners now.”

  It was true. Cresting a nearby rise, hundreds of bloodred pennants streamed in the afternoon sun, each signifying a hundred Uul warriors.

  “We cannot linger here,” Halik stated. “As you say, the enemy on the hill is crushed, cut off from resupply or reinforcement. They can no longer threaten us. Leave a few thousands of your warriors to ensure they do not escape, but we must rejoin the bulk of our army and push the greater force of the enemy back, deeper into the gap. There we will hold him while the hatchlings deploy.” He paused. “You have shown great promise, General Ugla, and I need you and your warriors there.” Hesitantly, he patted Ugla’s shoulder as Niwa had often done to him. It wasn’t his people’s way to touch each other at all, other than while killing or mating, but Niwa’s touch had become oddly… comforting. Ugla recoiled, as Halik expected, but then let him pat him again. “Once that is done,” he continued, “we can finish our business here.”

  He stared hard, thoughtfully, at the smoking hill, imagining the scene on it. “We know you had them, General,” he repeated, “but perhaps more important, and far more interesting, is the fact that the prey-the very worthy prey-you faced must know it as well. I wonder what they will think of that.”

  Colonel Flynn stared at the withdrawing Grik a moment longer. They’d mauled them badly and they didn’t seem as numberless as they had, but he knew his guys were done. They’d never hold off another assault half as big as this one. They just didn’t have the numbers,
ammunition, or strength left to do it. They should have had us, he thought. Hell, even the common Grik warriors probably knew it. I wonder why they pulled back. Suddenly, over the throbbing of his wounds, he felt a chill, and there wasn’t enough of a breeze to blame it on his sweat-soaked shirt. “ How in the hell did they pull them back?” he muttered. He’d been amazed to see the growing discipline the Grik displayed ever since Ceylon, but pulling the Grik off the shattered remnant of his division must have been like pulling a pack of dogs off a tree full of raccoons. Wearily, he shook his head and turned back to the trench to check on Bekiaa-and what was left of his troops. He was perplexed and uneasy, but he wouldn’t complain.

  “Col-nol!” cried a filthy, blood-spattered Marine corporal.

  “Yeah?”

  “My cap-i-taan send me. Make sure you see!”

  “See what?”

  The corporal blinked agitation. “Pease come, sur! You see better on right.”

  Almost reluctantly, Flynn followed the corporal around and over the tangled heaps of dead. The hill was a little higher on the west side, the slope a little steeper, and that was probably another reason the Grik had concentrated where they had. That didn’t mean the Rangers and the company of Marines emplaced there had gotten off without a scratch, but the enemy dead did extend considerably farther away from the breastworks, slain by the more accurate. 50-80s. As Flynn drew near, he saw that his troops were moving forward to reoccupy their forward defenses. Then he saw something else.

  “Oh, good God,” he muttered. A few miles to the west-southwest, an army marched in long, dense, serpentine columns with the precision of a machine. The corporal’s captain joined them and handed Flynn his telescope without a word. Flynn raised it with shaky hands and managed to adjust the focus. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he whispered without even realizing he’d spoken. Leedom had told him, but he just hadn’t grasped it, hadn’t understood. Marching under the midday sun with a grandeur and geometric inflexibility Napoleon would have envied, an honest-to-God army of Grik churned rapidly, relentlessly, through the tall, green grass, as yet unspoiled by the battle that had raged around the hill.

  “Are… are they coming for us?” The captain asked hesitantly but almost formally.

  Flynn slammed the telescope shut.

  “No,” he said. “They’re angling for the Rocky Gap. And look”-he pointed-“the Grik reserves that didn’t come at us are already moving that way.” He shook his head and snorted an ugly laugh. “Now I know why we’re still alive. That General Halik’s got bigger fish to fry, that’s all. There’s not enough of us left up here to worry about, and he knows it. Shit!”

  William Flynn was as Irish as any American could possibly be, and despite his pain, even fueled by it, his temper soared. “We gotta report the absolute hell out of this. Pray God we’ve still got comm. Whether we do or not, we’re going to get word out somehow-and make General Halik wish he’d wiped us out when he had the chance!”

  CHAPTER 16

  Baalkpan

  March 15, 1944

  Dennis Silva walked with Bernie Sandison and Ronson Rodriguez at the head of a virtual army of young torpedo techs and strikers, ordnance ’Cats, EMs, and other “sparky” types. Lawrence trotted exuberantly alongside Silva, his crested head swiveling rapidly back and forth, taking in all the changes to the city. Within the column were carts piled with weapons, tools, and crated ammunition, and it snaked its way through the crowded, festive pathways toward the area between the vastly enlarged new fitting-out piers and the massive shipyard.

  Dennis was still stunned to see how packed, bow to stern, the piers were, with completing ships of all descriptions. There was Santa Catalina, smoke coiling above her funnel, looking almost predatory with all the armor and weapons they’d lavished on her. Silva hadn’t seen the ship before-and had fluttery feelings when “her” P-40s thundered over-head-but he’d been told she looked like the old Asiatic Fleet destroyer tender Blackhawk.

  Maybe once, he decided with a critical eye. The lines are still similar. Most of the cargo booms are gone, though, and she looks kinda… tough now.

  His gaze wandered as he walked. He was particularly amazed by the monstrous, almost Home-size floating dry docks fitting out at a completely new facility in the far distance across the bay. These weren’t the same as the ones he’d seen under construction when he left. Those were finished now, and already in use either here or elsewhere. The new class was a powered, self-propelled variety that could steam wherever they were needed, and even fight!

  The original permanent dry dock had even more smoking engines around it, and the place was wreathed in a perpetual cloud of steam. A brand-new carrier was taking shape inside the now concrete- reinforced, ’Cat-made canyon, and mighty wooden cranes were poised over mountains of bright timbers like impossible insects. He’d known concrete was in the works. Many of the ingredients were abundant in the highly volcanic region, and they’d been cooking limestone for acetylene. He’d heard that was related somehow. But to see it already in use… His eyes strayed to a pair of the old floating dry docks, side by side, and sure enough there were S-19 and the salvaged remains of Walker ’s sister, Mahan! The wrecked destroyer and practically wrecked sub were both in the process of becoming something maybe a little different from what they’d been, though major alterations on S-19 had only just begun with Irvin Laumer’s arrival a few days before. Not much to see there yet but a nearly stripped pressure hull. But Mahan! He couldn’t believe it. He wondered how they’d managed to fish her up. Almost half the damn thing had been blown off, but she was beginning to look kind of like her old self again! Maybe shorter…

  “Silva!” Bernie snapped-maybe the third time.

  “Whut?”

  “That nasty, creepy thing you use for a brain must be off on the moon! Listen up, and quit woolgathering! You and Risa will be the first ones at bat with all the new small arms, after Adar says his piece. I’d order you not to screw it up-with half the city watching-but then you’d probably start the show by seeing if you can whiz farther than you can shoot!”

  Silva shrugged. “Maybe I can…”

  “ Please don’t screw it up!” Bernie groaned. “I’m asking you, damn it! I’m nervous enough as it is without worrying about you! And whatever you do, don’t carry on with Risa out in front of everybody! Besides… everything else, she’s a Marine and an officer now!”

  Silva grinned and patted the sling that supported his new “Doom Stomper.”

  “No sweat, Mr. Sandison! I’m your man! I’m still feelin’ mighty friendly and a-bleeged! Besides, shootin’ stuff is what I do! Me and Cap’n Risa’ll shoot off the good stuff, an’ show ’em why the junk won’t work.” Clearly, Silva had already formed strong opinions about some of the experimental weapons. “Relax,” he continued. “Torpedoes and… other things… are what you do. It ain’t like you got to sell the stuff!”

  Bernie stopped, wordless for a moment, and the whole column ground to a halt behind him. “That’s exactly what we’re here to do today!” he finally insisted. “We have to decide what weapons and systems to devote our resources to, then sell them to the guys and gals who’ll make them-as well as those who’ll have to bet their lives on them! We all bitched about the useless crap the Navy gave us to fight the Japs: the crummy torpedoes, the dud shells. Stuff that cost lives! Now we’re the ones responsible! All this time, we’ve been making do, but the time’s come to put some real weapons in the hands of our people, and I’ll be damned if one sailor, soldier, flyer, or Marine gets killed because something doesn’t go off when they’re counting on it!”

  Silva arched an eyebrow. “Zat what yer workin’ on, off in the jungle east o’ town? Real weapons?”

  Bernie stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Bull flops. I seen some o’ the brightest ordnance ’Cats we got headin’ down a trail at first light yesterday, an’ they didn’t never come back. They all get ate, an’ you forget to mention it? W
hat’re you doin’ off in there you can’t tell me about?”

  Bernie looked at him. “I wouldn’t tell you I had a hangnail!” he said, then paused. “Look,” he almost whispered, “you try to fool everybody, but you’re not stupid. Of course we’ve got secret stuff going on-you sniffed it out easy enough. Must be the way your mind works. Anyway, some things-big things-have to stay secret now. The war’s changing. We’ve got Impies and all these women running around. Who’s to say not one of ’em is a Dom spy? It would still be tough for the Grik to spy on us, but we have to stay tight-lipped about things here that somebody who gets deployed might blab to a Jap interrogator-or a Grik who understands English!”

  Silva nodded. “No sweat, Mr. Sandison,” he murmured back. “I won’t blow. You workin’ on anything that might interest me?”

  Bernie hesitated, then shook his head. “No.”

  “Then I don’t care what it is.” Something caught his eye and he grinned.

  Ensign Abel Cook and Midshipman Stuart Brassey appeared and hurried to join them as several paalka-drawn carts, heavily laden with fresh meat, took the opportunity to cross ahead of the stalled column.

  “Good morning, Commander Sandison. Commander Rodriguez,” Cook said in his vestigial, high-class British accent, and saluted. “Hiya, Dennis.”

  “Mornin’, Mr. Cook,” Silva replied, stressing Abel’s new status. “Mr. Brassey!” Cook’s freckle-tanned face reddened, and Brassey smiled uncertainly.

  “’Ister Cook!” Lawrence tried to repeat, and saluted as well.

  “Lawrence,” Abel managed, then turned back to Bernie. “Ah, may we assist in some way, sir? We have no other duties, at least until we report back to Mr. Letts in the morning.”