Pass of Fire

by Taylor Anderson

  “Frankly,” Matt continued, “Geerki doesn’t think they can take losing another Celestial Mother and still keep it together. I agree with him.”

  “So you sayin’, aafter we been so careful not to blaast her aass, ’er even bomb Old Sofesshk too much, we gonna go aafter her in that cowflop paal-ace there?”

  “Take out their queen,” Spanky mused. He looked at Matt. “That’s why we haven’t plastered the joint all along. You’ve been cooking this up for a while and didn’t want to chase her off.”

  “Maybe,” Matt agreed. “Partly. I also didn’t want to make a martyr of her and stir the Grik up even worse”—he glanced at Tabby—“like it did when that goofy Isak killed the old queen at Grik City and waved her head around on a pole.”

  Tabby snorted. “Good thing the baattle was pretty much over. I don’t think he was expectin’ the re-aaction he got!” She scratched her ear and blinked concern. “You think the new one’s still in her paal-ace?”

  “Sure. They’ve had no reason to move her, and her being there makes the Grik in front of Alden all the more determined. Just as significant,” he added lower, “recon photos seem pretty conclusive. Something’s happened to a lot of the Hij civvies in Old Sofesshk. There aren’t near as many. Maybe they evacuated them, or sent them to the front. . . .”

  “Or ate ’em,” Spanky inserted.

  Matt shrugged. “Who knows? But it also looks like they’ve dramatically reduced the number of troops there as well, from about ten thousand to only four or five.”

  “Then maybe they did move the queen,” Tabby speculated.

  “Henry Stokes’s snoops with Pete don’t think so, and neither does Geerki. Moving her would expose her to airstrikes, even random ones, and nothing our planes can drop can hurt her in that big stone cowflop. A lot of the warriors left in Sofesshk are scattered, probably keeping the remaining Hij in line, but most are in the vicinity of the palace. They’re guarding something besides the silverware, probably from the Hij still hanging around.” He cupped his chin in his hand, thinking. “Most significant of all, though, it looks like the four or five thousand Grik troops in Old Sofesshk are all there is inside one or two days’ march of the place. Why keep more around, twiddling their thumbs in the rear, when they’ve got our beachhead and now the Repubs to worry about? And since the city’s on a kind of peninsula, where two rivers join, if they can’t reinforce from the north, they’d have to pull reserves from in front of Pete and take ’em across the water to get there.”

  “Sounds like a golden opportunity to rub her out, if we could get to her. But even if we could, we can’t kill her, can we?” Spanky said, finally realizing where this was going.

  Matt shook his head. “No. This time we have to take her.”

  Tabby blinked amazement, then rolled her eyes. “How the hell we gonna do thaat? Even if she haad no guards at all, we still got all the Grik in the world between us an’ her. An’ somehow we get closer, they will move her!”

  Matt slumped in his chair and looked straight ahead. Nat’s PTs had passed them, heading for a tender to load more explosives. Three more of his squadron were already moving away, heading back toward the Neckbone. “Right,” Matt agreed gloomily. “That’s the part I can’t figure out.”

  Spanky looked aft, eyes straying to the fighting now a couple of miles astern. It looked like small arms had joined in, as both sides went at each other hammer and tongs. The Grik had probably launched a probing attack, counting on the artillery barrage to keep I Corps’ heads down. They didn’t have any aerial recon right now, much less the detailed photographic maps the Allies had made of the enemy defenses, and throwing bodies into the grinder was the only way they could measure its strength. Mortars started falling, exploding in the no-man’s-land between the lines, and some of the new parachute flares popped in the sky, illuminating the killing ground under sputtering orange stars. The small-arms fire intensified and a few machine guns joined in, bright tracers arcing out, bouncing into the sky.

  Spanky’s eyes suddenly went wide. “I think I just did. Figured it out, I mean,” he said grimly, hesitantly, as if afraid to tell them. Matt and Tabby both looked at him and he took a deep breath. “Good God, I can’t believe I’m gonna suggest this, but . . . You said Chack’s doin’ good, ready to get off his ass?”

  Matt nodded, and Spanky pointed out at the flickering, drifting flares in the distance. Matt twisted in his chair to look past their wake as well.

  “Parachutes,” Spanky said at last.

  Matt just stared for a moment, then stood. “You’re right. Damn it, you’re right.” He was silent a long time, thinking. Finally, he took a long breath and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t like it. Nobody will. But damned if I can think of anything else as fast and crazy and unexpected—or more likely to blow things open.” He turned to Minnie and raised his voice. “Send to General Alden to try to speed up moving Sixth Corps into the line and pulling Second Corps’ Third Division back to Camp Simy.” He looked at Spanky and lowered his voice. “If we’re gonna do this to Chack, he deserves the best backup we can give him. And that’s Safir Maraan.”

  CHAPTER 9

  ////// Camp Simy

  At the mouth of the Zambezi River

  February 13, 1945

  We’re all gonna die!” Chief Gunner’s Mate Dennis Silva proclaimed grandly, striding into Chack’s tent without knocking on the pole by the flap. Lawrence, Silva’s Grik-like Sa’aaran friend, stayed outside, placating Chack’s orderly, who’d tried to stop the intrusion. Lawrence’s strange-sounding voice was apologetic.

  “Die!” screeched another familiar, annoying voice, from the small, colorful, tree-gliding reptile draped around Silva’s taut, muscled neck.

  “Ol’ Petey’s right for once,” Silva agreed, pitching a cracker as if over his shoulder, but Petey caught it. The cracker exploded and crumbs rained down on the pile of paperwork on Chack’s little folding table.

  Chack was rapidly blinking gummy eyes at the big man and his lizard, silhouetted by the bright morning sunlight. He’d been in the trenches at the river beachhead toehold with Safir Maraan for several days while she coordinated the replacement of her corps by the Sixth. Movements like that were tedious and had to be made with care because the Grik were good at sensing weakness in the line. He hopped a ride downriver in Walker, the trip taking most of the night, and spent the time making plans with Captain Reddy and Pete Alden. He hadn’t slept until he came ashore.

  Tossing off a light cottonlike blanket, he fumbled for his kilt and the Impie watch he kept in a pocket. “Whaat time is it?” he grated, irritated.

  “Time to get yer lazy, stripey tail outa yer rack an’ greet another hell-hot day in the luxurious liberty paradise o’ Grikland!” Silva continued in his lofty sarcastic tone. “We got shit to do—if we’re really gonna pull this latest turd beetle–crazy stunt.” He shook his head in mock amazement. “An’ it ain’t even my fault for once. I didn’t have nothin’ to do with this goat-brained notion. Scuttlebutt says Spanky’s to blame,” he added darkly. He blinked thoughtfully and looked down. “Which makes sense, I guess . . .” His eye fastened back on Chack, who’d found his watch and groaned when he looked at it. Resignedly, he took the little key hanging from the same chain and started winding the piece. “But the skipper’s on board, an’ he ain’t nuts,” Silva continued, “which just proves he hates me after all, if he’s willin’ to go to such extremes to kill me off.”

  “Eat?” Petey screeched, and Silva tossed another cracker with similar results.

  Chack eyed the accumulating mess on his table, then closed his eyes and shook his head. “Your logic is so twisted, how caan even you make sense of it? I’ve haad less thaan two hours sleep in . . .” He blinked confusion. “Days. And now you wake me up with this?” It took him a moment to figure out how Silva even knew about the plan. It wasn’t out yet and Silva hadn’t been part of making
it. Then again, Walker’s crew, human and Lemurian, was as much family as the crew of any Home, and she was much smaller. Word got around fast. No enemy could’ve made Juan or the mess attendants in the wardroom talk, but they would’ve made sure Silva knew. Instead of pointlessly pursuing that, Chack simply said, “Nobody said you haave to come. Cap-i-taan Reddy might not even let you. I thought you were baack in the Naavy for good, your Maa-rine days over.”

  Silva scratched the short blond beard on his chin and glanced at his grimy fingernails to see if he’d captured anything. Cooties were becoming rampant in the trenches. “Sure, that’s what I thought. But besides you, Gunny Horn was the only real Marine we had in our little band.”

  Chack was a bit taken aback by what was high praise from Silva on numerous levels, for him and Horn. Many of the same rivalries from the big destroyerman’s old world were alive and well here, including traditional shipboard friction between deck-division “apes” and engineering “snipes,” but so were those between the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Corps, even the various Allies. Rivalries were good for promoting competitive accomplishment, Chack knew, but sometimes hindered cooperation. Fortunately, so far, they always seemed to get tamped down before they got out of hand. But the point was, despite obligatory protestation to the contrary, Silva obviously admired some Marines, and his friendship with Gunnery Sergeant Arnold Horn predated either of their separate arrivals on this world.

  “Arnie got shanghaied an’ sent off to Savoie as her actin’ gunnery officer, fer God’s sake!” Silva began to rant. “All because he spent a little time on some old battlewagon in the old days an’ learned to make the big guns shoot. Woop-te-do! How hard can it be? I heard Kurokawwy had Griks doin’ it. But just imagine Arnie a goddamn officer. He’ll hang hisself outa misery.”

  “Gunny Horn led a regiment, for all intents and purposes, when we went aashore upriver. So did you, for that maatter,” Chack reminded.

  Petey was leaning forward, eyeing the crumbs on the desk. Silva mashed him back down. “That ain’t the same thing a’tall,” he objected.

  “Nevertheless,” Chack continued, “while you might not”—he started to say “be fit,” but stopped himself—“thrive as an officer, Horn might. And Saa-voie needs him.”

  “But they broke up the band!” Silva protested, then stopped. “Get in here, Larry. Quit sankoin’ around out there.” Lawrence joined them in the tent, hesitant, self-conscious. Silva might not acknowledge the vast gulf between his and Colonel Chack’s authority, at least in “social” settings like he’d forced here, but Lawrence wasn’t built that way. Lawrence wasn’t Grik, though only his orange and brown coloration set him apart at a glance, but his birth culture—mostly wiped out and now changed forever—had been just as hierarchical. “Good ’orning, Colonel,” he managed.

  “Good morning, Laaw-rence. Would you like to sit?” Chack indicated a cushion on the grass floor. “I’d offer you coffee—or tea, if I had any,” he added pointedly.

  “You’re gonna need me an’ Larry,” Silva forged ahead, “to fill Arnie’s malingerin’ shoes. Why, without Risa . . .” It was Silva’s turn to catch himself. After an awkward moment, he exhaled noisily, but lowered his voice. “Yer gonna need us to keep yer head on straight,” he finished.

  “Oh, very well,” Chack said severely, concealing his pain over Silva’s mention of his sister, but also hiding pleasure as best he could. He hadn’t even asked Captain Reddy for Silva. Everyone knew how much he’d been through, and, in reality, the entire fleet needed Silva’s knowledge at least as much as Horn’s. Horn knew the guts and gizmos in Savoie’s gunhouses, lifts, handling rooms, even her plot rooms and range finders better than anybody, but nobody knew general gunnery better than Silva. All the same, Chack knew Matt would give him Silva if he asked. Their mission was desperate, nearly suicidally so, and nobody had as much experience as Silva at getting things like that done. And this time all the marbles really were up for grabs.

  “But we’re not going to die,” Chack continued adamantly. In the middle of the hellish bombardments upriver, Safir informed him there’d be a youngling between them. He was ecstatic—and agonized, knowing he’d have no more chance of getting her out of harm’s way than Captain Reddy had of sending his pregnant wife, Lady Sandra, back to Baalkpan. Less, actually. Matt could order Sandra home, but Safir was a general, a queen, and a corps commander. He could spill her condition to Captain Reddy and he might pull her back, but Safir hadn’t told anyone but Chack. She’d never forgive him and he’d lose her forever. And that was obviously why Captain Reddy didn’t send his own much more pregnant mate away—though Chack was unsure how humans dissolved their matches. It didn’t matter. Both females were devoted to their duty, Safir to the army and her people, Lady Sandra to the wounded. Chack and Matt would both have to endure their fear for the safety of their mates and younglings, and victory was the best, quickest way to protect them.

  “Ha! Fat chance!” Silva laughed. “Did you miss the part about ’em throwin’ us outa airplanes? Outa the goddam sky, to plummet to our crunchy, spattery, agonizin’ dooms, right in the middle of all the Grik in the world? Might as well take a bath with the flashies.”

  “Fat chance!” Petey echoed derisively.

  Allied pilots had been issued tightly woven spidersilk parachutes for some time, though they were rarely used. Nobody was crazy enough to open one over the water or the Grik. Fish or Grik: take your pick, both would eat them alive. Scuttlebutt said pilots in the East had similar reservations about being taken by Doms. They probably wouldn’t be eaten, but their deaths could be even worse. Parachutes were so rarely used, in fact, that a growing minority in the assembly, led by Sularaan representatives, wanted to halt their production to save money. That wouldn’t happen because they were saving more aircrews all the time, mostly of crippled planes that made it back over friendly territory now that there was such a thing. But absolutely no one had ever imagined dropping armed troops behind enemy lines to fight. Not on this world.

  “Cap-i-taan Reddy said the Ger-maans on your world attaacked the Dutch with paar-troopers. The Dutch were Con-raad Diebel’s people, weren’t they?”

  Silva shrugged. “Who knows? I barely knew the guy. Could’a been a Esky-mo for all o’ me. Don’t matter. Nobody here’s ever done it. Nobody’s even thought about it. Damn sure never practiced it! We’ll have to cook up a way to do that, at least. Then, even if—somehow—a few of us make it down alive,” Silva continued, “we won’t have no artillery, hardly any ammo, food, or water, an’ ever damn Grik in earshot o’ the Salacious Mammy’s screechy voice’ll come a’runnin.”

  “’Hat is ‘salacious’?” Lawrence asked, always anxious to learn new words, but aware Silva often made up his own, or distorted real ones.

  “Never mind,” Dennis retorted, but cocked his head, thinking. “Y’know? I ain’t sure. I got called ‘las-vicious’ once. Don’t know what that means neither, but I’ve heard both words aimed at the same folks from time to time.”

  Chack had taken the opportunity to pull on his kilt and stand. Now his tail was whipping back and forth behind him and he blinked impatience. “We waant the Celestial Mother to scream bloody murder—once she’s secure and we’ve done all we caan to fortify our position in and around the Paal-ace of Vaanished Gods. Our presence will draaw a great deal of the enemy’s attention, right when they’ll be least prepared to spare it. At least thaat’s the plaan.”

  “An’ you know plans’re for shit?”

  Chack hesitated. “Often,” he grudgingly admitted. “More often thaan not, in point of faact. It waasn’t the case at Zaan-zi-bar, however.”

  “Maybe. Mostly. But, hell, I was makin’ my part up as I went,” Silva confessed.

  “He all’ays do that,” Lawrence complained lowly. “And I get shot!”

  “I know, Dennis,” Chack agreed, with a sympathetic blink at Lawrence. “You often use a great deal of ini
tiaative. Your style caan be danger-ous,” he qualified, “but is surprisingly effective. Thaat’s one reason I’m glaad you’re coming with me. You’re always most useful when forced to be imaagin-ative. You and Cap-i-taan Reddy share few traits, but thaat’s one.”

  “Yeah? Swell.” Silva glared at Lawrence. “An’ you don’t always get shot, you fuzzy little salamander. Besides, ever’body else has got shot too. Why should you be special?” He looked back at Chack. “So what’s the full dope? What’s our little stunt supposed to accomplish, big picture, an’ how do we get the fat lizard broad—an’ our own asses—the hell out after we swipe her?”

  Chack blinked at him, then laughed. “I guess the scuttlebutt misinterpreted what we meant by ‘take.’ You misunder-staand. We’re not going to swipe the Celestial Mother from the Grik, we’re going to secure possession of her at the paal-ace—and wait for the Grik to come for her.”

  Silva’s right eye almost popped out. “Holy shit!”

  Petey fluttered discontentedly on his shoulder. “Holy shit!” he cawed at Chack.

  “You are talkin’ suicide!” Silva objected. “I might as well go hang myself.”

  “No. I told you we’re not going to die and I meant it.” I must live, for my mate—and youngling now, Chack thought. “If we secure the creature the Grik see as their Maker on earth, they’ll have no choice but to try to retrieve her—yet they’ll be terrified of hurting her, or thaat we will. They’ll go crazy, and think of the confusion! Thaat’s when everything will break, and we’ll get our chance to wreck the Grik!”

  “Holy shit,” Silva repeated. Then he looked at Lawrence. “Sorry buddy. He didn’t say nothin’ about you. You’re gonna buy it, sure.” He thumped Petey on the head. “An’ you ain’t goin’.”