"Yes, brother," he said as Ayatollah Fatamid slowly rose to his feet. "Do you wish to give testimony?"
The aged cleric stared silently at Bishop Ralphy Bruce for so long, only the harshness of his look showed he was aware of where he was.
"Ralphy Bruce," he finally said in his quavery, old man's voice, "I have sometimes suspected your heart might harbor thoughts and ideas that run counter to the precepts upon which the Kingdom of Yahweh and His Saints and Their Apostles was founded. If you are wrong in this deep belief about the truth of the off-worlders, you will regret the day you chose to betray us in favor of the infidel!" The silence as he resumed his seat was palpable. Never in the memory of any member of the convocation had one of them made so thinly veiled an accusation against another, nor so serious a threat.
"You are righteous in what you say, brother," Bishop Ralphy Bruce said so softly his voice barely carried to the far end of the sanctuary. "But I am equally righteous in my belief in the depth of the threat we face and the earnestness of the off-world unbelievers when they say they will give us all the aid possible in defense against it."
Someone in the room applauded. A few cheered.
"BRETHREN!" The reaction of the few to his response to Ayatollah Fatamid so encouraged him that Bishop Ralphy Bruce suddenly felt the strength to sing the sacred cadences. "When they toil for the sake of HIM and his faithful, THE LORD will give strength even unto UNBELIEVERS!" His shoulders pulled back and he stood straight, his arms flung toward heaven. "Even as OUR LORD," he dropped his eyes to Ayatollah Fatamid, "or Prophet, as some call him, washed the FEET of the sinners, so may we TREAT with the unbelievers when it is in HIS cause! Let us pray!"
Four divisions quietly moved into place to encircle the swamp lands below the Mountains of Abraham. Twenty-four squadrons of Avenging Angels assembled at three widely spaced and hastily built airfields a hundred kilometers from the swamps. The raiders had obliterated another remote village—and laid waste to a small Army of the Lord patrol base since Bishop Ralphy Bruce Preachintent gave his after-the-fact approval of the planetwide surveillance. The surveillance paid off. Following each of the raids, the vanished shuttles had reappeared low in the air above the swampland below the Mountains of Abraham and disappeared into them.
Nobody had any idea how large the off-world unbeliever force was, but except for the first raid—the one on Eighth Shrine, where no one could know how many there had been—there were no reports of more than three shuttles and twelve of the small, nimble AFVs in any one raid. The markings on the shuttles seen in the surveillance images were identical in each raid, which strongly suggested they might represent most or, with the Lord's blessing, all of the force the enemy had. If that intelligence was correct, the Army of the Lord was sending one regiment of infantry or light armor plus one squadron of attack aircraft against each of the twelve AFVs.
It was a ratio Archdeacon General Lambsblood found comforting. He'd seen the devastation wrought by the offworld raiders and wasn't in the least sanguine about their destructive power. Only a fool, he believed, would go up against them with anything less than absolutely overwhelming numbers and strength. Even with the odds so greatly in favor of the Army of the Lord forces under his command, he expected heavy casualties.
Every hovercraft and water-skimmer on the planet was commandeered for the operation. There weren't enough, so the Army of the Lord borrowed more from Interstellar City. There still were too few. Chief Administrator Creadence used his authority to have the CNSS Douglas County, then in orbit around Kingdom, lend its six Essays and twelve Dragons to the operation. He was so wrapped up with watching the coming operation unfold it didn't occur to him to wonder why an old troop ship was plying the spaceways without a load of combat-ready Marines.
As well-equipped as they could get with vehicles capable of negotiating the swamp, the four divisions split into their regiments, the infantry regiments into battalions, and slithered into the miasmatic morass. The light armor regiments sent their vehicles as deep into the swamp as they could find ground solid enough to support their weight. A hundred kilometers away, twenty squadrons of Avenging Angels rose into the air and halved the distance from their bases to the swamp, where they orbited in holding patterns. If needed—the pilots kept hoping "when" they were needed—they were mere minutes away from striking.
Hours went by, then half a day, with neither contact nor sign of any life not indigenous to the swamp. Then one of the regiments lost contact with one of its battalions. Scouts sent frantically to its location found a surprising and horrible sight: swamp scavengers and opportunists writhing in agony as acid ate away their bodies from the inside out. Of the missing five hundred soldiers, all they found were a few weapons and acid-scarred scraps of uniform cloth.
Archdeacon General Lambsblood knew what must have happened. The unbelievers had weapons that acted silently, and they had attacked so quickly the Soldiers of the Lord hadn't had time to fire their own weapons before they were killed or captured. The swamp scavengers and opportunists devoured the remains of some before the acid of the enemy weapons dissipated. The remains of others sunk into the murky waters or were sucked into the mud and quicksand. Many, perhaps most, of their weapons went the same way.
Archdeacon General Lambsblood was glad his battalions were converging. The closer they were to each other, the less chance another could be attacked without the next one knowing in time to counterattack.
Fifty kilometers away the Avenging Angel pilots chaffed. They had been orbiting for hours and had grown impatient for targets to attack.
By then the four divisions, less one battalion, had penetrated three-quarters of the way to the heart of the swamp.
"What's that?" Soldier Augustian asked in a panicky voice.
"Where?" Sword Lutherson demanded. His eyes scanned the foliage, his hands keeping his flechette rifle pointed where he scanned. His squad occupied the rear half of the skimmer.
"In the water. I saw something, maybe a man swimming under the surface."
Sword Lutherson looked at the water, his hands automatically shifting his rifle's aim. The water was murky, as though tainted with the devil's own urine. It certainly smelled thus to Lutherson.
"Nothing's there. Your fear is making you see things. Nothing but the vile beasts of the swamp can be in that water."
"But, Sword, I swear I saw a man under there."
Sword Lutherson snorted and returned his attention to the foliage that edged and overlapped the waterway their skimmer floated along, foliage that appeared to rot even as it grew. He did his best to ignore the insects that buzzed about his ears and crawled on his flesh. The rank vegetation grew dense in that part of the swamp and sight lines were short. Twenty meters ahead of the skimmer he saw a hovercraft following a bend in the channel. Another skimmer was barely visible through the foliage an equal distance to the rear.
Something thunked the skimmer's bottom. It jolted.
"Watch where you're going!" Lutherson shouted at the boatman operating the skimmer. "You'll run us aground."
The boatman didn't bother to reply. His wide eyes probed the waters to the front and sides of the skimmer. He didn't know what it was that hit his skimmer, but he hadn't run it aground or hit a sunken log, of that he was positive.
There was another thunk against the bottom of the skimmer's hull.
Seconds later a soldier fired off a burst from his rifle into the water abeam of the skimmer.
Lutherson open-handed him across the back of his head, hard.
"Stop that! Don't fire unless you have a real target. You'll give us away if anyone is close enough to hear. And don't waste your ammunition on the water, the flechettes lose their energy within inches. Even if there was something to shoot at, you wouldn't hit it underwa—"
A dual explosion tore the skimmer in two.
The nearest soldiers were shredded by shards of shattered hull. Those near them screamed as splinters tore into their flesh. Uninjured soldiers yelled at each ot
her as they fell into the vile water and grappled for something that would keep them afloat. Some of them retained enough of their senses to reach for wounded comrades to pull them to safety, but hardly any thought to look for an enemy to fight. And none of them looked far enough into the distance to see that the hovercraft before them was also broken, as was the skimmer to their rear.
So hardly any of the soldiers saw the things that looked like deformed men rise, dripping, from the water and aim hoses in their direction. Those few who got off quick bursts riddled two or three of the horrid apparitions before the viscous green fluid coated their flesh and sent them into the agonies of the damned.
The scene was repeated throughout the area of operation, eighty of the five hundred skimmers and hovercraft in the operation shattered by explosives attached to their hulls; 160 of the thousand infantry squads were killed, 10 percent of the force was wiped out. The initial loosing of the minions of hell lasted less than two minutes.
Before all the reports of death and destruction of his soldiers even reached Archdeacon Lambsblood's headquarters, skillfully hidden doors, set into the more solid portions of ground less deep into the swamp than the infantry had gone, opened. Weapons of unfamiliar design rose on platforms from the holes. The weapons crackled when they fired, and each crackle sent an invisible crushing force into the Gabriels that couldn't penetrate the swamp as deeply as the infantry had. Their work done in seconds, the weapons were lowered and the doors closed over them, once more hiding them from any but the most carefully searching eyes. Behind them they left one-third of the operation's armored force shattered, fragments of exploded Gabriels sizzling where they landed in the mud and water.
Less than a minute after the first Gabriel exploded, orders were issued to six of the orbiting Avenging Angel squadrons to obliterate the areas around the killed vehicles. Filled with righteous joy, ninety pilots banked out of their holding patterns and sped toward the swamp, dropping as they went so they would be at attack altitude when they arrived on target. The pilots of the other eighteen squadrons enviously watched them leave.
As the Avenging Angels neared the swamp, skillfully hidden doors in the ground just inside the wetland opened and weapons similar to those that had killed the Gabriels rose on platforms, already aimed heavenward. They crackled.
Every Avenging Angel of two squadrons disintegrated.
The three Avenging Angels of one squadron that weren't destroyed in the opening volley spun about and sped away; one didn't get out of range fast enough.
Five Avenging Angels of another squadron managed to escape, and the commander of a trailing squadron spontaneously ordered his pilots to fire all their missiles where he spotted the strange weapons. The commander's instinct was good; his squadron destroyed two of the weapons. Nine of that squadron's fifteen pilots paid for the victory with their lives.
Eight Avenging Angels of the final squadron made it through the protective fire to their designated target. They totally obliterated the ground in the vicinity of one of the killed Gabriels and destroyed one of the enemy's weapons. Then they sped on and were lucky enough to exit the swamp through an area not covered by the invader's remaining antiaircraft defenses.
"Everybody, into the water!" Second Acolyte Talas screamed when the skimmer to his hovercraft's rear exploded; he realized boats had suddenly become unsafe places to be. He was the first soldier to leave the illusory safety of the hovercraft and drop into the scummy, waist-deep water. His soldiers, having seen or heard the skimmer explode, scrambled into the water behind him. Even the boatman jumped ship.
The turgid water was almost as difficult to wade through as it had looked from the deck of the boat. It felt thicker than water had any business being. Sodden clumps of rotting leaves drifted in it, as did fragile waterlogged twigs. Things the men didn't want to think about bumped or wriggled against them as they followed their officer to the edge of the watercourse. The slurry of muck on the bottom of the water sucked at their feet and more than one boot was left behind. Intent on their officer, the men didn't see anything rise up behind them.
Second Acolyte Talas, still crying out "Follow me," reached the vegetation along the bank of the watercourse and broke his way into it. When he felt the mud under his boots begin to rise, he grasped a buttress root and stepped upward. His foot found precarious purchase on a slick root and he pulled himself out of the water. There, less than a meter away, was land. It was just a more-solid mud and didn't look very inviting, but it did appear capable of supporting a man. Watchful of his balance on the root, Talas stepped across the narrow gap and soon had both feet on the ground. Only then did he turn about to see how his men were doing.
Behind them the hovercraft was still making its way against the current; unguided, it was angling toward the opposite bank of the watercourse. But of his men, he saw none.
"Lead Sword," he shouted, "report."
The indignant scream of a swamp creature a few meters away was the only response.
"Squad Swords, report!"
Not even the swamp creature replied.
"Anybody in first platoon, sound off!" Second Acolyte Talas's voice climbed the register toward panic.
Somewhere, a swamp flier cawed, an amphibian croaked, another creature cried. Flying insectoids buzzed about, water drip-dripped, clumps of rotted leaves heavy with moisture plopped into the water. But not one soldier from first platoon sounded off.
Second Acolyte Talas's breath came in shallow, rapid pants. He slowly lowered himself to a crouch. His officer's sidearm shook in his sweaty grip.
He slowly became aware of a different sound, one that was neither made by the swamp creatures nor rotted matter falling into the water. It was a low-pitched, slow huffing, as though something was breathing nearby. Slowly, he turned his head to look behind him.
A creature stood a few meters away. Manlike in its overall appearance, its face was sharply convex and it had fluttering slits on its nictating membrane swept across the creature's eyes from the inner side to the outer. The teeth exposed by its evil grin were pointed. It had tanks mounted on its back. A hose led from the tanks to a nozzle in the creature's hands. Then a greenish fluid shot out from the nozzle.
Second Acolyte Talas screamed briefly.
Ambassador Friendly Creadence listened to the report of the battle with mounting horror. When Archdeacon General Lambsblood finished, the ambassador got control of himself and thought briefly.
"Archdeacon General, I thank you," he finally said. "Let me be sure of what you are asking. You lost nearly a third of your force in a battle that lasted less than ten minutes. You then withdrew from the swamp without opposition."
Lambsblood didn't reply; that was what he'd told the off-world ambassador.
"It is your studied professional opinion that the armed forces of Kingdom are not powerful enough to defeat these intruders."
Lambsblood nodded. The disgrace of his failure had him so tense that his neck audibly creaked when he bent it.
"You believe that the only way to defeat the intruders is with the aid of the Confederation military."
"Yes." The word was almost unintelligible.
Creadence turned to Bishop Ralphy Bruce Preachintent.
"Bishop, do you concur with the Archdeacon General?"
Bishop Ralphy Bruce nodded weakly. "Yes, Mister Ambassador. As much as it pains me, I formally request military assistance from the Confederation of Human Worlds in rooting out whoever it is that has invaded." He took a deep breath. "May I remind the ambassador, as a member world of the Confederation of Human Worlds, the Kingdom of Yahweh and His Saints and Their Apostles has every right to make this request. And as the foe we face is obviously from off-world, the Confederation of Human Worlds is obligated to come to our assistance."
Creadence nodded. "That is true, Bishop. It is my opinion that, in accordance with law and treaty, you have the right to request military assistance, and in this instance we have the obligation to provide it. I will dispatch an ur
gent request today."
"Thank you, Mr. Ambassador."
They rose and shook hands all around. Bishop Ralphy Bruce led his delegation out of the ambassador's meeting room.
When they were gone, Creadence said to Thorogood, "This is definitely serious enough to send for the Marines."
Thorogood simply nodded.
Despite his years in the diplomatic service, Ambassador Creadence had never had to send for military assistance and didn't know what details he should put in his report. Since they only had a suspicion of the nonhuman nature of the invaders, the urgent request for Marines was vague on that point; it was necessarily vague on the size and strength of the force the Marines would face.
Chapter Thirty-One
Navy doctors determined that Pasquin's leg would have to come off below the knee. "No problem," the orthopedic surgeon at the Bethesdan Naval Medical Center's Dahlgren Surgical Clinic told him the first day he was out of stasis. "We'll have you back on active service in no time at all."
"Ma'am," he grinned up at the lieutenant commander surgeon, "I've got nowhere else to go right now." He'd been in stasis for two months before arriving at Bethesdan. Dean and Claypoole were already back on Thorsfinni's World spreading lies. He wondered what 34th FIST had been doing while they were away. Training, as usual. The three of them had been gone long enough that there might well have been a deployment. He vowed never again to complain about Marine Corpsfield problems.
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