Firestorm d-6

by Taylor Anderson

  Only Donaghey ’s mizzen remained standing, its top crowded with lookouts. A series of signals from there informed Garrett of a number of disconcerting things at once; three more Grik ships were in the offing, a major concentration of Grik was massing just beyond his view to the east, and the barges they’d be told to watch had begun streaming across the river mouth.

  “Well. It looks like they’ve finally got all their shit in the sock at once, this time,” he said grimly, using one of General Alden’s favorite terms. It was early afternoon, and he’d just returned to Bekiaa’s position in the center. “Runner!” he shouted. “Get over here! Listen,” he continued when he had the young Lemurian’s attention. “Go to Captain Chapelle. Tell him it’s about to get messy. He’s to send what he can to support the guns on the north coast, but only as much as he thinks he has to, got it? The gunners’ll have to chew those barges up. I think that’s mostly a distraction from a really heavy hit on our front! We got ships coming in again too. They’re hitting us everywhere at once. Got all that?”

  “Ay, ay, Cap-i-taan Gaar-rett! Ships, barges, an’ swarms o’ Griks! Support North baa-tery, but only as needed.”

  “You got it. Now scram!”

  The Grik artillery had been desultory since morning, just a few rounds an hour to harass them. Suddenly, it opened up with a renewed frenzy and frequency that outpaced anything they’d experienced yet. More guns must have arrived, and some were big ones. The distant jungle fairly erupted with smoke, and incoming roundshot competed against the surf with its similar, more insistent sound.

  “Take cover!” Garrett yelled, and dropped to the bottom of the trench, pulling his helmet tight. The damp sand convulsed and shuddered, and the air was full of descending clouds of grit. “All guns but those positioned directly to the front, commence counter battery fire!” he yelled, hearing the command passed along. “Those to the front, load case shot and hold!”

  Even in the trench, he felt the crack of one of Tolson ’s long guns, and heard the squeal of the truck as the gun recoiled back on the wooden deck they’d built in the sand. Moments after the shoosh of the shot was lost in the distance amid the increasing tempo of thunder, he thought he heard the distant clap of the exploding shell raining fragments on the enemy gunners. He crawled to the top of the trench, squeezing past a pair of sailors with muskets, and peered over the breastworks. White puffs nearly a thousand yards away sprayed blackened shards, some large enough to see from here, through the trembling treetops overhanging the unseen enemy guns. The six cannon on this line were joined by Donaghey ’s, even as she prepared to defend against the approaching Grik ships on her opposite beam. At some point, they’d lose her support. She didn’t have enough crew to serve both sides at once. A staccato booming came from the far left, as the guns guarding the river approach opened on the barges full of Grik.

  “I wish we’d gotten more guns out of Tolson,” he murmured. They were lucky to have the nine they had. The frigate had held out as long as she could, but finally rolled onto her beam ends, submerging more than half her armament. Several ’Cats were killed when that happened. All that remained was to begin the task of breaking her up and floating timbers ashore. Once begun, the sea accelerated their task, and a constant stream of debris, more than enough for their needs, washed onto the beach. Of the noble Tolson, all that remained in view was a shattered skeleton in the surf.

  “They’re coming, Skipper,” said Saaran-Gaani, squeezing in beside him, his dark amber eyes wide with excitement. Greg’s exec from Donaghey had found him. Smitty was directing the guns on the stranded ship and Saaran no longer had a purpose aboard. He’d asked permission to join the fight ashore. Greg looked east and saw a malignantmass of Grik forming in the distance across the dazzling white sand and the sea of dark corpses.

  “Do you have a weapon, Saaran?” The brown and white ’Cat blinked affirmative, and patted his sword. Garrett sighed. “No!” He looked around. “Lieutenant Bekiaa!”

  “Sir?”

  “Any muskets lying around, from the wounded and dead?”

  “No, sir. Sailors buy it, Marines take ’em back.”

  “The ‘Sailing Master’ needs a spear, then. Like you, I’d rather he didn’t get within arm’s length of those bastards!”

  “Can you use a musket, sir?” Bekiaa asked Saaran Gaani. He nodded. Like everyone, he’d familiarized himself with the new weapons and fired a few shots. They didn’t use longbows on the Great South Island, and he’d be useless with one. “Will you kill Grik?”

  “Until they kill me,” he replied matter-of-factly. Bekiaa blinked approval.

  “Take mine,” she said, and tossed it to him, followed by her cartridge box.

  “But… what will you use?”

  “Cap-i-taan Garrett has instructed me to stay back from the fighting. If I need another, one will be available.” She grinned, her tail swaying almost flirtatiously. “I hope that one will not return to me until after the fight!”

  “Dern it, Bekiaa,” Greg said, flustered, “I told you to quit risking yourself worse than a private soldier, and now you’re making a pass at a recruit!”

  “He’s an officer! There is nothing improper.”

  “Nothing improper…!” Greg closed his eyes in the face of the onrushing horde. He should probably get back to the right and rejoin Pruit; it was just a hundred yards or so, but Captain Barry would do fine. He was closest to the covering fire of the ship, and the Grik had been veering north of there as they neared the line. He might as well ride it out here. “You just concentrate on killing Grik,” he told Saaran, taking his own advice and sliding back from the breastworks. “Don’t get all aflutter.”

  Saaran glanced back. “A most… fascinating female,” he remarked.

  “Sure.” Greg moved to join Bekiaa. The enemy artillery began to lift, even while Tolson ’s old guns redoubled their fire. Explosive case shot would soon become canister again. “It’s very improper to leave poor defenseless male-sailors!-thinking about weird, predatory Marine broads right in the middle of a battle,” he said formally.

  “All I said…”

  “It’s never what gals say that gets a guy killed. It’s what they think she said… or did.” He looked appealingly at Lieutenant Graana-Fas. “Is she like this all the time?”

  “I don’t know, sir. We’re from different ships.” He lowered his voice. “Perhaps she… offsets… or compensates? Replaces one risky behavior with another? Don’t ask me; I was a carpenter at Baalkpan. Before this war, there were no ‘Marines’ here. How is it where you are from?”

  “Well… since there aren’t any female line officers of any kind, battlefield romance is sort of rare.”

  The banter was a tonic, helping them keep their minds off what was coming. Judging by what little Greg could see from his prspective, it was going to be bad; by far the strongest push yet. As the hissing roar and weapon-on-shield rumble of the charging wave of Grik built to overwhelm the guns, Garrett took a sip from his “grogged” canteen and passed it to Graana-Fas and Bekiaa. He fiddled nervously with the pattern of 1917 cutlass hanging from his belt, expecting for the first time that he might have to actually use the damn thing. He’d practiced some, with the Marines. Everyone had to. But he’d never pulled it in combat before except to wave it around. Unlike a few of the weapons (most notably Silva’s and the Bosun’s) that had reached this world in an unopened crate aboard Walker, Garrett’s cutlass looked brand-new. The oiled wooden grip had a few little dings from carrying it around, but the black oxide finish on the guard and blade was practically unmarred. His fingers almost seemed to heat, touching the thing, and after he retrieved his canteen, he opened the flap of his holster and drew the 1911 Colt.

  He looked south, at Donaghey ’s standing mizzen, trying to read the signal flags. Only the lookouts there would have a real idea of what they faced. His blood ran chill when he saw the message that essentially said, “Enemy too many to count.” So. This is it, he thought. The mast trembled and a g
out of smoke billowed from Donaghey ’s seaward side while a few guns tried to keep firing at the mass descending like an avalanche on the breastworks. No one spoke now; the banter was over. Nervous ’Cats tugged at their armor and a few veterans windmilled their arms to ensure their range of motion. Muskets were already loaded and held at the ready, and Marine archer/spearmen cast nervous glances at their NCOs waiting for their own order to prepare. More spearmen arrived from the right to bolster the line, and Greg realized Barry must have seen that the center was going to take a pounding.

  He hefted the Colt. Unlike the cutlass, the pistol fit his hand like a glove. Its black-blue oxide finish had evolved into a general bright gray appearance but there was no rust. The checkered walnut grips were warm with memories of other walnut things he’d known from another world, and he wondered if there were any walnut trees here. His eyes and thoughts lingered on the UNITED STATES PROPERTY stamped under the slide on the left side of the frame, and he reeled with a sense of unreality such as he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. I’m a kid from Tennessee who’s about to die on the other side of a different world! Suddenly, he realized how Captain Reddy must have felt at the Battle of Aryaal, with all the Grik in the world swarming down on him. Greg had seen it from the ship. He’d known the captain was dead… but he wasn’t. He didn’t give up and he didn’t die.

  With growing determination, Greg pulled the slide back on the Colt and released it, letting it chamber a round. Calmly, he pushed the magazine release button and caught the two-tone device. Fishing in his pocket, he thumbed a copper-nosed cartridge in on top of the others, then shoved the magazine back into the well until it latched.

  “About two hundred yards, Skipper,” Saaran-Gaani shouted, barely audibly.

  “Very well,” Garrett replied. “Let’s go to canister,” he recommended. “Lieutenant Bekiaa, commence firing at your discretion.”

  General Halik had never seen anything like it. He was accustomed to small-scale combat, one-on-one, in the sport-fighting arena. Even before, when he’d been part of larger actions against other Grik, “his” battles had been narrowly viewed from his own perspective without thought for the larger issue. Now he watched from a distance, not so different from those who once is fights so many times in the past, but he’d designed this attack, he and Niwa, based on fundamental principles he’d learned in the arena. Feint, slash, parry; the unexpected blow from the side, the demonstration to gain an opponent’s attention while preparing a blow from a neglected quarter-all were appropriate here, writ large, and yet…

  “The enemy fights well,” he admitted grudgingly. “They react much quicker, I think, than we would in similar circumstances.” The “amphibious” attack across the river mouth was disintegrating, each barge full of Grik savaged in turn, with no opportunity to reply, by typhoons of small projectiles-“canister and grape,” fired by those three heavy guns. The heavier thrust at the center had been decimated as well, by canister, arrows, and musket fire, but at least it could respond, and it hit the enemy defenses with an awesome crash clearly audible over the other thunders of battle. He saw nothing of the attack from the sea, but the back mast on the stranded ship had fallen.

  “They’re all ‘Hij,’ General Halik,” said Niwa. He’d rejoined the Grik leader after watching the waterborne assault depart. The confusion and chaos he’d witnessed, even among their “better” troops, appalled him. “That’s something even First General Esshk has difficulty comprehending. The lowliest warrior in their ranks can recognize the ebbs and flows of battle, or call attention to perceived threats. Of course they react more quickly.” He paused. “The barges are a waste of Uul. If that attack had begun in darkness, it would have fared better.”

  “Probably, but it still serves a purpose. It is the blunted jab that holds a portion of the opponent’s attention. When he is forced to forget it by the battering sword, it might yet become the fatal thrust.” He snorted apologetically. “I am new at this. I have never even faced this enemy before.” He hissed a sigh. “I do not expect the ‘prisoners’ we’d hoped for, but I am learning from them.”

  “Remember, these are castaways, stranded warriors with no support,” Niwa warned. “The larger force will be more difficult.”

  “I understand, but still I learn how the enemy thinks and fights. I see for myself the value of prepared defenses, these ‘breastworks’! Once our armies learn to use such things, at need, do you believe they could be dislodged?”

  “No,” Niwa said.

  The tumult of battle reached a crescendo, and the enemy line began to falter in the center.

  “Look! Oh, look, General Niwa!” Halik cried. “We have broken through!” He looked at Niwa. “Let us send a company of our ‘special troops’ to join this exercise!”

  Greg Garrett inserted his last magazine and racked the slide. Grik were in the trench behind the breastworks! The line had been holding well enough and with his limited view, he’d begun to feel a sense of optimism. Then, with a suddenness that left his thoughts reeling, the shield wall at the barricade simply disintegrated under the unexpected weight of a solid block of Grik reinforcements. He saw Graana-Fas thrust upward with a spear from the bottom of the trench, impaling a squalling Grik, and sling it among the wavering troops behind him. While he was thus occupied, more enemies leaped down upon him, and he fell beneath their hacking swords and gnashing teeth and claws. Greg fired at them, but one shot was spoiled when Bekiaa, covered in blood, dragged him out of the trench to the rear, where another shield wall was trying to form.

  “Where’s Saaran?” he yeled, but Bekiaa didn’t respond. Grik were milling in the trench below, their wickedly barbed crossbow bolts flying past in thrumming sheets. Garrett fired down into the momentarily stalled Grik, joining a volley of muskets and arrows that piled them deep in the damp sand. His slide locked back.

  “Here!” Bekiaa screeched, handing him a musket, a bloody, blackened bayonet fastened to the muzzle. “Find ammunition!” Bekiaa had a musket now as well. Greg scooped a black cartridge box out of the sand and glanced inside. Empty. He saw another and opened the flap, discovering three paperlike cartridges, each containing a. 60-caliber ball and a trio of “buckshot” atop a load of powder. He had some caps in his shirt pocket already-just in case. Loading as he’d been trained, he joined the fusillade firing into the trench, yelling as savagely and incoherently as any of the ’Cats forming alongside him. Shields protected him now, placed there by Lemurians joining them from other parts of the line. A bolt grazed his inner forearm as he rammed down his final charge, and he looked up for a moment. Uncountable Grik had assembled beyond the trench, pausing for an instant across what had become a river of corpses they could almost walk across.

  “Form square!” Bekiaa thundered.

  Square? But that must mean… They were surrounded. Somehow, the line at the breastworks had fallen apart across a broad front. Only a few of the great guns spoke now, those facing the river, and maybe a couple on the extreme right, near the ship. Donaghey ’s guns still thundered furiously, but none was directed at the Grik infantry anymore, and Greg smelled wood smoke in the air.

  He’d seen Lemurian Marines form a square only once before, and that had also been at the Battle of Aryaal-when everything fell apart. They’d saved themselves, managing to retreat in good order while embracing troops from other broken regiments. They did the same now, creating a temporary shield-studded barricade that sailors and other Marines could join, but this time, they had nowhere to go. The Grik were streaming across the trench now, and he poked at them with his bayonet as they came snarling toward him, battering at the shields with their sickle-shaped swords and their own bodies, slashing and gnawing with their teeth.

  “I need ammunition!” he cried.

  “There is no more,” Jamie Miller shouted. Somehow, the young surgeon had joined him in the press, a spear in his hands. The kid looked wounded, wearing so much blood, but didn’t act like it.

  “We have to make it to the ship,
” Greg roared. “Bekiaa? Can we move the square to the ship?”

  “What good will that do?”

  Greg wasn’t sure. He assumed Pruit still had something there, and if they could get more people aboard her, they might still ply Donaghey ’s landward guns. But he couldn’t see the ship anymore, over the mass of furry-feathery, reptilian shapes, and the wood smoke was growing thicker. Bekiaa probably thought Donaghey was afire. If she was… But trying to fight their way to Chapelle was impossible. It was twice as far, and there wasn’t even the chance of more ammunition in that direction. “Just do it, damn it! It’s our only choice!”

  Slowly, the square moved like a vast turtle festooned with thousands of crossbow bolts jutting from shields like porcupine quills. The Grik seemed to divine their intent, and fought even more furiously to hold them in place and finish them. Wounded ’Cats fell and were left for the enemy to shred. Grik waved body parts, arms and legs, and even battered at the shields wi the macabre clubs.

  “Don’t stop!” Bekiaa shrilled, her voice beginning to go. Greg had always been amazed by the volume Lemurians could achieve, but Bekiaa’s voice was nearly finished.

  “Don’t stop!” he repeated, over and over. “We can’t help the wounded. Stay on your feet, whatever you do. If you fall, you’re dead!”

  As if his words had summoned the bolt, Jamie Miller fell to the sand, black fletching on a dark shaft protruding from his side, his boyish face already pale and slack.

  “No!”

  “Leave me!” gurgled the former pharmacist’s mate, blood erupting from his mouth to pour down his beardless chin. Greg didn’t even stop to consider the hypocrisy. He grabbed the boy’s arm and tried to drag him, but Jamie pitched forward, face in the sand, and became a deadweight.

  “No!”

  “You must leave him,” Bekiaa croaked, moving beside him now. “He’s dead,” she pronounced gently. With tears welling in his sweat- and grime-crusted eyes, Garrett released the boy’s arm, feeling the lifeless fingers pass through his. Someone else had taken up his cry in Lemurian: “Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”