He dove to the ground and tried to make himself small, as bomblets and VT fell around him.
Empty bunkers. Royalist artillery registered on this position, ready to fire as soon as he got here. They'd known he was coming, and that meant that the bunkers- A bunker ten yards to his left exploded in fire. Then another. And another.
Mines. Command detonated mines. The artillery bombardment continued, as one by one the bunkers exploded in fire and white phosphorus, and Niles's command disintegrated.
Skida Thibodeau dodged behind a lacework of fallen trees and turned her binoculars on the main enemy base down below at the river. Floating curves of fire reached out towards her. While Icepick fought its way through the valley, the headquarters guards units had moved parallel to them. At the last moment she came in from the North in the only helicopter available, flying low to the ground, a terrifying experience but it wasn't likely the distracted enemy would spot the machine before it dropped her off and went back to the base camp.
The Spartan river base was a semicircle backed on the river, lit like day now by burning timber, smashed wagons, the fires from the barges anchored by the shattered piers. Lights sparkled all around the perimeter of it, bulging inward here and there, bulging in furthest from the west, a wedge cut out of the half-pie. The wedge sent out licks of fire, flame-thrower fire, to the strongpoints holding out in its path.
Just beyond the point of the wedge longer flashes sparked, mortars firing to support the Royalists.
Suddenly fire fell into the wedge. The men dodged into bunkers, into holes- The bunkers began to explode one by one, killing her troops.
Kali eat they eyes, it not working, she thought disgustedly. The Helots had been relying on overrunning the base while the defenders were still reacting to the gas attack. Something had gone wrong. The Brotherhood fighters had recovered too fast and were dying too hard; the Helots did not have the weight of numbers or metal to overcome the stiffening resistance.
Or worse. How did they know we coming? Traitors! Royals must have spies in the Helots, spies, how else could they know? It was a good plan, can't go wrong, must be spies.
Suddenly the Royals were on the move. The big unit on the ridge above, the one that Icepick had fought past, it wasn't killed at all, and now it was coming down the hill to close the trap.
There was gunfire behind her. The Royals were moving in that way, too! One more push. It was a good plan, too good to give up now, just because a few things went wrong. Something always goes wrong.
She swept her binoculars around the hill. Aha! "They got observation from up there," she muttered. It was the last of the river base's outposts, the last one holding out.
"Follow me!" she shouted. The reserve company advanced behind her. The fire from the observation base was still heavy, and she found the attack squads grouped in the last cover, huddling against the timber and rock. She rolled into the biggest hollow.
"Who's in charge here?" she said.
"F-f-field Prime!" A boy, looking pathetically young, none of the street-tough now. "I am, Field Prime, at least, Group Leader Metakzas is dead. Platoon Leader Swaggart, ma'am."
"OK. Swaggart. Keep calm, fill me in."
Tears of frustration glistened in his eyes, but his mouth snarled. "They… it was so close, we got the gatling out with the flamethrower and started to pile in, then a mortar round hit right behind Group Leader and they came back at us, pushed us back over the wire. We tried, we really did, Field Prime."
"Skilly know, boy. Quiet." They certainly had; half the reinforced company sent to take this position looked to be out there, hanging on the wire or scattered in front of the Royalist firing positions. Strong positions, with good overhead log-and-earth cover.
She looked up the slope; the gatling was still dead, but there were functioning machine guns in the two bunkers flanking it. The covering wire had been blown with bangalore torpedoes, long tubes of explosives pushed in under it, but there might be live directional mines. No help for it, she said, taking a long breath. Starting out, you knew it come to this.
"Weapons," she said. The Meijian answered.
"Sanjuki here."
"You got those mortars silenced yet?"
As if in answer, a bright light arched through the sky from the east; it seemed to hesitate and then plunged down toward the burning chaos of the river base. Launched from a stubby melted-looking automatic mortar, and guided by a fiber-optic cable. There was a tiny Tri-V camera in the nose, but only fractions of a second to guide it in.
"One more down. They have excellent overhead protection, Field Prime, and only open their firing slits for a few seconds."
She gritted her teeth; Skida Thibodeau had always hated excuses. You did it, that was all.
"Field Two, how it going?"
"Hard work, Skilly." Two-knife's gravel voice. "We killing them, but the rabiblanco's not giving up much."
"Keep at it, I get their eyes off you." Back to the Meijian. "Fire mission, ring Base One," she said.
"Yes, Field Prime-that is very close to your position-"
"Skilly know! Skilly says do it, and now!"
"All right," she continued, switching to local push. "Skilly is here, compadres. What you all waiting for, the Cits to send you enough lead you can open a bullet factory? This way up!"
The rockets crashed down, and the air filled with steel. "Follow me!"
"Urrgk."
Private Brother Pyrrhos McKenzie spat, coughed, spat again. The fluid from his lungs seemed to be about half blood and half thick clear something that he didn't want to think about. Everyone else in the bunker was dead, he thought-Ken when the gas came, and Leontes with a bullet through the face in the last attack. He hung over the grips of the gatling, blood and brains from the wound and the inside of his helmet still leaking down on the metal; it sizzled, the breech-ring hot enough to fry the matter that slimed it into a hard crust.
Glad I can't smell, McKenzie thought. The radio was squawking, but there was no time to listen to that.
Breathe. Deep bubbling sounds, like air going through a coffee maker. Cough, and his mouth filled with the heavy salt warmth. Spit. A little better on the next breath. Up. Impossible to stand, haul yourself up handover… handoverhand. Gasping, he stumbled two steps to the firing slit and collapsed over the weapon, knocking the other militiaman's body off it.
"Sorry, Leo," he wheezed; that was a mistake, he went into another coughing fit and something in his chest felt like a hot knitting needle. Only right. Leo and he had been ephebes together, candidates for the Phraetrie. He was going to marry Leo's sister Antigone when they both turned twenty-three. The coughing went on a long time, but he felt a little better afterwards, though, and blinked his eyes clear while his hands fumbled at the grips of the gatling. Took up the slack on the spade grips, and the electric motor whined, spinning the barrels with blurring speed. His thumbs rested on the firing buttons on top of the grips.
God, there's a lot of them. Crawling towards him, but he was nearly level with the ground here. Lots of dead people out there, dead mules and horses, the gas had gotten them. Burning stuff, crates.
He depressed the muzzles, stroked the buttons. Brrrrrrrrt. Brrrrrrrt. The recoil surged in his arms, and he coughed again; the liquid spurted out of his mouth and hit the barrels, spraying. Rebels dropped, killed, sawn in half by the fire. The enemy scattered, rolling out of his line of fire; he walked the bursts over crates, bodies, anything that might give cover. Wood and flesh and mud exploded away from the solid streams of heavy 15mm rounds, bullets that would punch right through a mule. One hundred rounds a second, and there was a big bin of ammunition right there beneath the firing step.