Flynn, with his white-streaked red hair poking from under his helmet, laughed. “Aye, sir, I know how you feel. That’s how I wound up back in the infantry!” Flynn had been a foot soldier in the Great War before joining the Navy and the submarine service. “I’ll pass the word,” he added. “Then, once those archers are cleared, we’ll get back to work on the breastworks. They’ll probably have at us again before long.”
“No doubt.” Rolak glanced around, taking in the bodies and the height of the sun once more. Then he gazed northeast, where a mighty column of smoke towered high enough that he could see it above the trees. Madras was burning. “The enemy certainly knows we are here now, Colonel. They will be back, and this position must hold.”
Marine Captain Bekiaa-Sab-At, Flynn’s exec, scrambled behind the protective shields, her hot musket in her hand. “The enemy fire is slacking,” she said, even as the replying musketry around them continued to taper off. A Grik horn boomed in the distance. It might have been calling for a while.
“That is a redeployment call,” Rolak said, “if Hij-Geerki described it properly.” He’d left his pet Grik aboard ship-for now. He actually trusted the pathetic creature, but no sense in tempting him, he figured. “They may have learned to use it for the same effect as a retreat call, to preserve their warriors from Braad-furd’s Grik Rout. I wonder…” He looked at Flynn. “Don’t rely on it, though. It is just a thought.” He blinked apologetically. “Now I must retreat, I fear.” He gestured back at the sun. “Your deeds have been noted this day, my friends! Farewell!” He turned and strode away, back up the road they’d so recently found, against the tide of marching troops coming to their relief.
“He is a good one,” Bekiaa said. “He reminds me a little of Captain Garrett. I think troops would follow anywhere he chose to lead them.”
“Sure,” Flynn agreed. “ We did. And he is a little like that Garrett kid-just older, with a tail, gray fur, pointy ears…”
Bekiaa chuckled. She was the only Marine still with the regiment; the others had been reassigned. She’d commanded USS Tolson ’s Marine contingent, and she and some sailors and Marines from Donaghey, Tolson, and Revenge had volunteered for Flynn’s outfit after Revenge was sunk by a fish, and Russ Chapelle’s Tolson and Garrett’s Donaghey went aground. Greg Garrett had inspired her by leading them through the terrible shore action that followed. Tolson had been destroyed, but Donaghey was ultimately salvaged. Bekiaa still meant to go back to sea when Chapelle got a new ship or Donaghey ’s refit was complete. As much as she liked and admired Russ Chapelle, however, for some reason, she really wanted to join Donaghey — and Captain Garrett. Maybe it was because Donaghey was the last of the first new-construction frigates and still relied entirely on sails, or maybe it was because she’d spent most of that nightmare fight at Greg Garrett’s side. In the meantime, she and Flynn’s “amalgamated” Rangers had fought across Ceylon, and now they were here. Donaghey ’s exec, and “Salig Maa-stir,” Lieutenant Commander Saraan-Gaani-whom Bekiaa had a mountainous crush on-had also been with the regiment for a time, but had been sent as an envoy to his native Great South Island in hopes of bringing that land into the war.
“You know what I mean,” Bekiaa said at last.
“Sure I do. Some folks have it, like Rolak, Garrett, the Skipper. I think General Alden and Queen Maraan have it… and so do you.”
“Me?!”
“Yep.”
There was an awkward almost silence punctuated by a few occasional shots as Rangers slew the least-wounded Grik they saw. No ammunition would be wasted on the rest. The Grik were gone for now, Flynn judged. The 5th and 7th could take a break. He’d get some pickets out, though. “All right,” Flynn said brusquely, loudly. “They ain’t payin’ us by the hour. Company commanders to me! Even-numbered companies will take the first shift on the breastworks detail. Let’s move the whole thing forward a little, and get a better alignment with the Tenth Baalkpan on our right!”
A PB-1B “Nancy” roared by overhead, its OC (observer/copilot) dropping a weighted note with a colorful streamer attached. A squad from the 1st Marines went for it and brought it to Flynn, who was acting division CO. “Okay,” Flynn drawled after he unwrapped the dispatch and read it. “This says there’s a bigger Grik force charging up the road through what’s left of the one we pushed around. Ought to be here inside an hour.”
“That is as we expected,” Bekiaa said.
Flynn’s face scrunched into a skeptical expression. He waved the note. “Sure, but the flyboys say there’s nothing behind that force at all. Not on the south road, anyway. Weird.”
“Then we should be grateful. Perhaps we did achieve surprise. It might take them days to react in force.”
“Maybe…” Flynn shook his head. “Never mind. Maybe I’m still spooked by how they hid tens of thousands of their warriors in those mountains east of Colombo-and I figure it would be a lot easier to stash them in a jungle!” He snorted. “Well, big-picture thinking’s not my job, thank God. There’s still a lot of Griks coming our way and we’ll be plenty busy before long. Better get at it on the breastworks-and tell the fellas to expect a million of those Grik buggers by morning, from any damn direction! I don’t care what the flyboys say.”
CHAPTER 5
Respite Island
February 29, 1944
The response to USS Walker ’s return to Respite Island was notably different from when she first appeared there. The beautiful anchorage at the bright-beached foot of the fortified peak overlooking the crystalline water was packed with ships of all description, and where there’d been uncertainty and hesitant wonder the first time the destroyer appeared, now there was genuine delight at the sight of her. The guns in the high, white-walled fortress boomed in salute, the reports dull in the stiff breeze, but they were repeated by many of the anchored ships, and steam whistles whooped exuberantly. Walker fired a precise, four-gun salute salvo, symbolically emptying her guns, and sounded her shrill whistle and mournful horn in reply. The harbor pilot who’d boarded the ship beyond the dangerous reef had been brought out by the same pretty little single-masted topsail cutter that met them before, but this time its crew was grinning and talkative as it paced Walker through the channel. The pilot himself made no attempt to take the wheel or assert any control whatsoever over the unfamiliar vessel, but diligently and professionally directed them through to the anchorage. He was used to steamers, but had no notion of Walker ’s handling characteristics.
The Honorable New Britain Company had been extremely unpopular on Respite, and the Governor, a man named Radcliff, had strongly hinted that if the Empire continued down the self-destructive path the Company had been leading it, his island might have no choice but to break away. The success of Walker ’s mission to the heart of the Empire had clearly come as a great relief to the people here-yet now the Empire was at war with the Holy Dominion and had joined the Alliance against the Grik as well. Matt hadn’t been sure how they’d be received by the independent-minded Respitans, knowing their isolated island would become an important strategic nexus of contact between the two powers. They’d been willing to help before, with limited basing and fueling facilities and a powerful wireless station, but it had been understood that the Allies would leave them alone once the situation in the Empire was sorted out. Now that was out of the question, and despite cordial correspondence via that wireless facility, Matt expected some resentment. He couldn’t be more pleased by this new attitude on display.
“Thank you, Lieutenant Busbee,” he said when the pilot pronounced them free to maneuver in the anchorage. He scanned the shoreline with his binoculars, taking note of the new fueling pier and much-enlarged government dock. “You have the conn, Mr. Kutas,” he said to the badly scarred first lieutenant and former chief quartermaster. “Lay us alongside the dock first, if you please. After we’ve paid our respects, we’ll make Spanky happy and shift her over to the fueling pier.”