Lithia ground her teeth and said to Curtiz, "You'll need to alert the locals not to make sudden moves around my guards."
Curtiz holstered his weapon with a derisive snort. "Yeah, well, you'll wanna turn their reaction knobs down just a touch before Ross gets back. He won't cotton to your robots drawing down on children."
Lithia smiled condescendingly. "Thank you for the tip. Will you alert me when Captain Ross returns? I will be setting up operations in the old Hellstromme offices. I assume they are still in the condition in which we left them?"
"Except for the big hole in the front where a Reaper missile hit it, yeah."
"Charming. I will need to reattach to the power grid."
Curtiz reached over and picked up an oil lantern. "Here you go."
"Does anything work in this town?"
"The saloons are open 24 hours."
"At last, something that sounds useful." With that, Lithia stalked from the office leaving one of her automatons to gather her briefcase and follow.
Stephen watched the departing Hellstromme Industries liaison and her bodyguard from the front window, pressing his excited face against the glass. "I never seen a real robot before! She looked almost real!"
Curtiz sank into a chair, his head pounding. "Yeah. She looked almost real."
Chapter 23
Debbi stood in the avenue that cut through the wall from the gate to the courtyard. Where she stood, the sides of the avenue were nearly fifteen feet high on both sides, and the Rangers' makeshift tannis wall blocked it. If the Legion breached the main gate, this wall would trap them, at least for a while, and allow the Rangers to fire down from the steps above and hopefully slaughter a few zombies. She watched as a group of anouks prowled around the wall, probing and stroking it. Their hands glowed with a weird purple energy that they directed into the loose stone to fuse it into a solid monolith. It had been finished in the three days since the battle with Tekkeng. The Legion had been unusually quiet. Some of the Rangers eagerly speculated Quantrill might retreat due to the loss of his pet Skinny.
Debbi wasn't so sure.
Fareel strode along the top of the barrier and directed the anouk gang to spots in the rock that still needed welding. He paused and wiped his face. Then he kicked the welded seams between the rocks and grunted with satisfaction.
Debbi said, "Looks great, Fareel. That oughta hold them for a while. But should you be out here? You were hurt pretty badly." She hoped that sharing the pain of Sahrin's death would draw them together in some way. Fareel had worked every minute since his friend's death.
The warrior glowered down at Debbi, his eyes locked on the battered badge that she had given Sahrin and now wore again in tribute to his memory. Fareel pounded his chest with a fist to show he was sound.
"Yeah, all right," the Ranger said irritably at his display. "Take it easy. You don't have to prove anything."
Stew's voice crackled in her ear. "Dallas. Stew."
"Dallas here. What is it, Stew?"
"The Legion's on the move! Looks like half a division coming at the gate!"
Oh God, Debbi thought, grateful she didn't say it aloud. Immediately, she heard chatter in her ear as the Ranger comlinks started buzzing. Ross got busy tossing out orders.
"I'm on my way. Dallas out." She unslung the Hellrazor that Sahrin had worn and she now carried. The Ranger ignored the pain in her body as she shouted back at Fareel, "Finish up in a hurry! The Legion's coming!"
Hundreds of rotting Legionnaires swarmed over the edge of the crevice only three hundred yards from the great wall and moved across the uneven ground in good order. They were not in the large baroque square formations because the terrain prevented it. They gathered in smaller squads of ten to twenty troopers, a more standard operational structure for the Syker Legion. These squads fired savage blasts of psychic energy that smashed into the wall with terrifying force.
The Colonial Rangers mounted the parapets and began to rain black needles and small arms fire down on the advancing Legionnaires. Soon, though, they saw that Quantrill had altered his tactics yet again. Different Legionary squads had been given specific tasks. Certain squads were "artillery," gathering energy and firing blasts at the wall and the defenders atop it, while others were screeners, generating force shields to protect the offensive squads from black needles. They dropped the screens so a blast could be fired and then raise them again immediately. In addition, certain squads roamed the field retrieving the stunned or wounded and drawing them out of range. The Legion was doing an admirable job of conserving their limited resources while still delivering firepower.
Hallow was silently impressed. The undead squads operated with extraordinary coordination. This mental network, however it was fueled and controlled, worked very well.
Miller wasn't so enamored of syker tactics. He fired and complained. "Damn it! I know I've seen that guy there at least three times. They keep dragging the son of a bitch out of range and then sending him back again."
"Well then, shoot it again," Stew suggested. He rolled his shoulders quickly to relieve the ache that still nested there from the assassin's blast he'd taken beneath Castle Rock.
Fitz called out, "How come those guys don't get sick and die like Hallow here?" He turned to Hallow who was a few yards down the wall. "Nothing personal there, pal. But, holy cow, we've shot some of them so many times they ought to have brain lesions on their brain lesions. No offense."
"None taken," Hallow responded. "It's a good question. I suppose being dead has advantages all its own."
Chennault put two fingers to her mouth and whistled. "Power up!
Two o'clock."
All the Rangers looked in the indicated direction and saw the weird green energy beginning to surround one squad. But they also saw the faint, telltale shimmer of a force screen generated by flanking Legionnaires. The sound of assault rifle bolts filled the air and multiple barrels swiveled to the two o'clock position.
They waited.
The force screen dropped and several Rangers shouted "Now!" and the parapet erupted like an old musket line with simultaneous needle and standard ammo fire. The energy blast slammed into the wall, sending tannis shrapnel whizzing through the air. At the same time, several Legionnaires dropped. The force shield slid back up and a retrieval squad began to pull the wounded from the field.
"I'm hit!" Fitz yelled and he slid down against the wall. "And guess where."
Hiroshi Tsukino scuttled to Fitz's side. He set down his medic bag and began to examine the big man's wound. Fitz's shirt sleeve was torn and blood ran down the upper portion of his right arm.
"For Heaven's sake!" Fitz stared at his bloody arm. "I'm a big, fat guy and all I do is take shots to the arm! I'd welcome a little shrapnel in my gut sometime so that when I'm old I won't have to eat out of a trough."
Tsukino laughed as he applied antiseptic spray. "I don't think you'll lose this one, Fitz. Try to keep your arm behind your head and maybe it'll stay pristine."
"Har har. Just slap a bandage on it, Hiro, and shut up."
Ross glanced at Fitz quickly and, satisfied the big Irishman was good to go, he turned back to the wall.
"This ain't gettin' it," Ross said to Debbi. "Quantrill's just wearing us out, wasting our ammo. When these needles are gone, they're gone. We can't get a resupply. Quantrill is one smart dead man."
"But we can't just stop shooting," Debbi said.
"No kiddin'. We can't let them get to the wall uncontested. He knows that too. And they're getting too many shots at us as it is. The wall's taking a beating and they're liable to blast that gate right off its hinges. A few hundred warriors! That's all I need. A few hundred warriors to flank 'em and we could roll them and wipe out half the Legion!" Ross scanned the courtyard and the parapets while muttering, "Where's Fareel? I'll bet he would get a war party together."
Debbi argued, "You can't go behind Martool's back!"
"The hell I can't. I'll do whatever it takes, Dallas. I'm tired of hiding
. Martool is playing right into Quantrill's hands and she apparently doesn't know it. Or if she does know, she doesn't care. She may be hot with the spiritual mumbo jumbo, but that's no real feat; shamans are a dime a dozen on this planet. She knows nothing about fighting war. So now she's on the road to losing. And she's taking me with her. I don't intend for that to happen."
"Fareel won't defy Martool. Particularly not for you. You're a human. The only thing you're going to do is create problems for us."
"Fareel's a warrior. Trust me, I know his type. It doesn't matter what color he is. He wants to win."
Debbi felt her face flush with anger. The instant Martool discovered Ross was trying to undercut her power she was liable to abandon the Rangers to the more brutal whims of the warriors, like Fareel, who despised humans. The Rangers were guests, and not welcome ones.
Martool didn't care if any of them, with the apparent exception of Debbi, lived or died. And while Martool showed herself to be quiet and even passive at times, Debbi knew the iron that was in the shaman's fiber. Martool would react harshly to Ross's underhanded actions and her vengeance would be swift.
But even as all those thoughts passed through her mind, another explosion rocked the wall and she nearly fell. More tannis shards flew and cracks appeared in the wall.
"That's enough!" Ross shouted. "That is damn enough!" He pointed down the line. "Stew! We need air support. You and the syker, go!"
Without a word, Stew turned and vaulted down the steps. Hallow hesitated, but followed. They were both injured, but ran as best they could to one of the two Stallions in the courtyard below. There was no time for preflight check. The ship powered up and lifted off. It rose straight up into the dizzying heights of the complex until it was lost in the haze.
Ross strode along the parapets. Fifty yards away, a group of anouks fired down at the Legionnaires with both rifles and ataxes. Debbi couldn't help but watch with interest as Ross began to talk to the surprised warriors. There was much arm waving and angry shouting and pointing.
After a moment, several of the anouks shook their weapons at Ross, but Fareel raised his arm to block them. The anouk turned to his brothers and spoke; then the warriors descended the steps together and crossed the courtyard at a run, drawing more warriors as they went.
When Ross returned, he gave Debbi a smug thumbs up. She started to speak, but he interrupted her. "Dallas, you and Ringo bring up the last of the black guns from the Hoss. When Fareel flanks those Legionnaires, we should get our chance to pour it on 'em and I want the ammo to do it right."
Debbi signaled for Ringo to follow her. As they climbed down, she felt a cold fear spreading in her.
It felt like betrayal.
Chapter 24
Debbi and Ringo hustled the black guns out of the back of the Stallion and up to the parapets. When they cracked open the crate, they were distressed to see only ten of the guns remained. Thanks to the fighting outside the walls early in the siege and the constant sniping from the parapets, their stock had been severely depleted. Debbi and Ringo served them out to the Rangers so that everybody had at least one spare hanging from their belt.
The Rangers continued to spray fire down at the Legion to keep Quantrill's troops from suspecting anything was afoot. Ross waited, unconsciously watching a jagged outcropping from which he expected Fareel to lead his raiders. Fareel had promised that he could collect at least two hundred warriors eager to come to grips with the enemy after the weeks of enforced inaction behind the walls. The anouks' minds were still fresh with the memories of the screams of their clan members as they were flayed alive for food. The warriors could exit the fortress through another of the many hidden entrances and wend their way on their chanouks across impassable ravines until they were barely one hundred yards from the Legion on a theoretically unreachable quarter of the enemy's flank. Then they would charge out and take the walking dead by surprise.
However, Fareel was waiting too. Ross promised that Stew would assault the Legion in a Hoss to soften them up and draw their fire. Over the patter of gunfire and the weird unnoise caused by the sykers' blasts, Ross heard the sound of the approaching Stallion. While the vehicles were relatively quiet, he was attuned to them.
The Stallion was an extremely maneuverable vehicle and Stew was the best pilot among the Temptation Rangers. But even Ross was amazed when he looked over his shoulder and saw the Hoss plummeted down the canyon wall at a desperately steep angle. It looked as if it was power-diving straight for the Rangers' location. It was, no doubt, the fastest way to bring the ship's guns to bear on the enemy, but in the hands of any but the surest or luckiest pilot, it was suicide. Any jiggling of the yoke and the Hoss would crash into the rocks jutting from the canyon or into the walls or bridges of Castle Rock.
The Stallion's forward cannons opened up on the Legionnaires. The ground shattered among the undead. Bodies flew, some in pieces. They were unprepared for air attack, but it only took them a moment to alter the angle of their shields.
The Stallion suddenly pulled up and roared just over the Rangers' position. Ross felt the wash. Hats flew. Ringo and Ngoma dived to the deck. The ship streaked over the Legionnaires and banked straight up, raking the zombies with rear cannons. Standing firm under the barrage, several Legionnaires shifted their gazes to the vehicle. Their energy blasts streaked out after the Hoss, burning along its side. The Stallion went hard over. Some of the Rangers shouted in alarm, afraid that Stew was losing control. But the Hoss righted and sailed up into the higher reaches of the canyon.
Fitz let out a loud whoop.
Debbi called out to Ross, "When Fareel's people show, don't shoot them with the black needles! The needles are dangerous to them!"
Ross shot her a look. "What? How do you know that?"
"Martool told me. I felt it was privileged information."
"We'll have to talk about whose side you're on later!" He turned to Ringo at his shoulder. "Pass it down, kid. Don't take any chances of hitting anouks with the needles."
Ringo yelled the warning to Ngoma who was fifty feet down the line. He nodded and turned to continue the call.
On the field below, retrieval squads pulled the wounded and their dismembered limbs from the field. Force shields covered the rescuers.
Suddenly, in the distance, a horde of chanouk-borne warriors poured from a cleft in a cliff, spreading like water surging from a fissure in a dam. Each chanouk and rider was a self-contained war machine. Fareel's charge of nearly seventy beasts rapidly crossed the uneven ground and fell with crushing force on the unprotected flank of a surprised Legionary squad. Unwary troopers were pummeled beneath muscular paws. Fareel didn't stop there. His savage attack pushed on, scattering or trampling the first squad he impacted and tearing into a second that was generating shields. This allowed the rear of the anouk unit to pounce on the troopers who had already been disrupted by the initial charge while Fareel continued on without losing the momentum of the assault.
A massive chanouk charge was an electrifying spectacle. The air filled with war cries and screams of pain. Dust and dirt rose from the melee of feet and massive paws and partially obscured the battlefield. Despite being under fire, the Rangers on the wall found themselves cheering as they watched the leonine creatures shredding undead troopers while anouks hacked and slashed from the saddle with glowing swords and axes that left streaks of violet energy in the air.
Blood pounded in Ross's head and he felt delicious fear and excitement watching the carnage below. As a young Colonial Ranger at Perdition Ridge, he had experienced a full-scale chanouk charge from the combined war parties of five clans. Now he thrilled to the terror the Legionnaires must be feeling, if the dead felt anything at all. The Great Charge had become the storied event of colonial warfare and hardly a Colonial Ranger or UN trooper didn't lay claim to having stood the bloody line against a savage chanouk charge. Most were lying, or just remembering with exaggerated terror facing one or two chanouks.
Ross felt a shiver run up
his spine and he actually laughed out loud. He wished he were out there with Fareel. The anouks were magnificent cavalrymen. As he watched the power of the attack, he knew more than ever that he was right and Martool was wrong. The only way to win this war was to unleash these ferocious warriors on the Legion. Ross's mind began to race over long-range plans for beating back Quantrill's main advance on Castle Rock. Afterwards he would sift forces throughout the canyon to block the enemy retreat and mercilessly cut them into pieces, scattering them back into the ground from which Quantrill had pulled them.
Ross watched as Stew's ship veered away from Castle Rock heading deeper into zombie territory to harry the rear of the Legion and keep them distracted. The battle was too closely joined below the wall for Stew to do any more good on this front.
The Rangers kept up their barrage on the Legionnaires. The defense screens were weakening as the brutal fighting with the anouks drew the attention of many frontline troopers. Zombies hit by needles froze in their tracks, only to be dropped by fire from the wall.
Fareel's warriors were at close quarters with five squads of the undead. Psychic energy flashed, slashing through anouks. Bony hands pulled screaming warriors from their saddles. Fareel struck tirelessly, war axes in both hands, slashing down at surrounding zombies. He and his warriors spun their mounts, fighting on all sides. They were covered in gore. They bashed troopers to the ground, only to have many of them climb unsteadily to their feet. So they bashed them again. Soon, fewer and fewer zombies were able to return to the attack.
The Legion responded quickly. Reinforcements poured over the distant rise, racing to engage Fareel's cavalry before the anouks could complete their destruction of the five squads and wheel left to fall on the rear of the forward squads who were still attacking the wall. The advancing reinforcements fired psychic blasts into the roiling mob with amazing accuracy, slicing past zombies and into anouks and their mounts. The blasts pummeled warriors unconscious in their saddle. Chanouks roared, swiping at the unseen source of pain.
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