Crazy, the stuff that goes through your mind, he thought. Carleen hadn’t, certainly not since Athena touched down. He dismissed the memory of her once more as he got back to Reatur.
The domain master said, “Well done. They’re still coming, but with arms and eyestalks pulled in partway. They don’t like being on the wrong side of your human noiseweapons any more than my warriors do.”
Bragg jabbed a thumb at himself. “Not like, either,” he said. Reatur’s eyestalks wiggled. Bragg went on, “Now try to kill their human male with noiseweapon. Then we win-Skarmer lose courage when that male fall.”
“A human does not have their noiseweapon,” Reatur said. “It is the eldest of eldest of the Skarmer domain master, the male called Fralk.”
“Is it?” Bragg wondered what the hell Lopatin was playing at. Whatever it was, it explained the bad shooting from the other side. The mission commander shrugged. Maybe it made his job easier. “Try to kill Fralk, then.”
“I want to tell you no,” Reatur said. Bragg looked at him in surprise. The domain master explained, “I want to kill him myself. But you are right, Emmett. Slay him now, if you can.” Reatur was a soldier like none America had known since the War Between the States, Bragg thought-he took his fighting personally. The pilot readied himself. He wished he had been a cop: some work with the popup targets the police used would have come in handy now.
He bounced up and shot with a two hand grip, one round after another, aiming at the Kalashnikov. His attention focused so completely on the rifle that he had fired several times before he even noticed Oleg Lopatin a few paces away, and twice after that before he saw the rope around the Russian’s neck. So things weren’t all going Lopatin’s way, he thought. Well, tough luck, Oleg Borisovich-serves you right.
The hammer clicked. The pistol was empty again. Bragg hit the dirt to reload. A moment after he did, the Kalashnikov started chewing away at the barrier in front of him. “Shit,” he said. He was just glad Fralk couldn’t shoot for beans.
Reatur’s guess was a good one: Fralk did not care at all for being shot at. A bullet kicked up snow and dirt at his feet. Another two zipped past him, closer than he ever wanted to think about. And two more struck a male close by Fralk. He did not even scream before he fell.
“Get back out of range, you idiot, before you get killed and get me killed with you!” Oleg yelled.
Fralk needed a moment to understand the human, another to figure out that he made good sense. “Back!” Fralk called. Several males in his small band had not waited for the order. He would deal with them later. “How far can that cursed pistol shoot?” he asked Oleg when they had retreated a good way.
“This should be far enough,” the human said, adding, “unless the man with the pistol there gets very lucky.”
Fralk thought about retreating some more, but enough males around him understood human speech to make that look like cowardice. He fired several rounds in the direction from which the shots had come but doubted they would do much good. The human on the other side of that frozen wall seemed to have a knack for surviving.
“What I will do,” Fralk decided, “is stay here and use the rifle to help our warriors on the flanks. I can reach the whole field from this place, and the pistol cannot. That still leaves us with the advantage.”
“Khorosho, Fralk, ochen khorosho,” Oleg said. “You are beginning to understand how to use your firepower. If you have more range than your enemy, you set up where you can hurt him and he cannot hurt you.”
That made sense to Fralk, but he still felt peculiar standing off in the distance while his males and the Omalo first flung spears at each other and then began using those spears-and every other weapon on which they could lay their hands-at close quarters as the Skarmer tried to force their foes back from the barricade.
Several Omalo warriors stood very tall to thrust at Fralk’s warriors. He fired a short burst. One of the enemy males tumbled away from the barrier, the upper part of his body a chewed, bloody ruin. The other Omalo warriors flinched away. A couple of Skarmer started to climb over the frozen wall.
Fralk shifted his aim from one end of the line to the other, squeezed the trigger again. He was not sure he hit anyone this time, but the Omalo flinched anyhow. Skarmer males started trying to get over the barrier there, too.
“If they can make it to the far side in any numbers, we have them,” Fralk declared.
“Da,” Lopatin agreed. After the fighting was done, Fralk knew he would have to figure out what to do with the human, but now he valued his thoughts. Fralk felt pleased at regaining his equanimity: this was the first time since that other human had shot at him that he found himself able to plan for what would happen after the fighting was done.
Reatur flung a spear at one of the Skarmer scrambling over the rampart. It missed his target, but might have hit a warrior further on-the enemy was tightly packed at that part of the barrier. The domain master shouted and waved his arms when one of his males killed the Skarmer with an ax.
But for every Skarmer who died, another-often more than one-did his best to climb over. “If they make it to this side in any numbers, we’re done for,” Reatur said.
“I know.” Emmett dodged a spear. His long legs made him extraordinarily nimble, Reatur thought.
Off in the distance, too far away for Emmett to strike back, Fralk’s noiseweapon began its deadly chatter once more. One Omalo male shrieked, then another, then another.
“They fight good,” Emmett said. “Sometimes-often- human warriors run away from noiseweapons, first time see, hear them. Your males brave, Reatur.”
The praise pleased the domain master. “Where would they run?” he asked. “If they lose here, they lose everything. They know it. But”-he let his deepest fear come out-“I doubt even they can hold against terror forever.”
“You right, I think.” Emmett took out his talkingbox, spoke urgently into it in his own language. He put it away, dipped his head to Reatur. “We do what we can.”
Irv stuffed the radio back into his pocket. “You heard the man,” he said. Louise Bragg nodded. So did Sarah. She had been limbering up every few minutes, ever since the battle started a few miles northwest. Now she started stretching in earnest.
“Let’s give it one last check,” Louise said to Irv.
“Good plan.” They walked over to Damselfly together and went over it strut by strut, wire by wire, joining by joining. They checked the thin plastic skin of wings, tail, and cabin to make sure it hadn’t developed any holes that could rip wide open in the air. They didn’t find anything. Irv started checking again.
“Are we good?” Sarah demanded. She was peeling off parka and long pants, hopping up and down to stay warm in the Minervan summer sun. “If we are, we don’t have time to waste.”
“We’re good,” Irv said reluctantly. He gave his wife a fierce hug. “Be careful. I love you.” Ending up in bed-or rather, on the floor-with Pat hadn’t done anything to change that. It just made him feel like a hypocritical bastard when he said that to Sarah.
“Love you, too,” she answered now. He wondered what she would say if she ever found out. He was full of scientific curiosity, but that was one thing he did not want to know.
He set the wide stepladder by Damselfly, helped Sarah climb in, then lowered the canopy. The sound of the hooks-and-eyes snapping it closed, shutting Sarah away from him, seemed dreadfully final. Shaking his head, he got down from the stepladder and carried it out of the way. Then he went over and took hold of a wingtip.
Louise had the other one. She also had her radio out. Irv took his out, too. “Testing,” he heard Louise say. “One, two, three, four…, how do you read Damselfly?”
“Read you five by five,” Sarah answered. Irv heard her both in the speaker and directly. “How do you read me?”
“Loud and clear. Break a leg, kiddo,” Louise said.