Pairs of Nancys occasionally rumbled by overhead, sometimes low enough to drop weighted messages with streamers attached. These would be carried back to Division HQ, but the pilots rightly thought Flynn needed the results of their forward observations first. Some of the messages disturbed him. Apparently, once they’d been told what to look for, the Air Corps had increasingly begun to notice odd clearings in the forest. Where before pilots might have been content to report that no Grik were seen, now they reported the clearings as possible corrals, whether dino-cows were present or not. Flynn was compiling his own mental map of the sightings and the picture practically confirmed, if he was right, that there were a lot of Grik in the area.
Nothing of the enemy had been seen on the more-open plain beyond the pass, but the patrol patterns the Nancys flew didn’t allow them to scout more than about twenty or thirty miles ahead. Twice Flynn sent requests for special flights to scout beyond that, hopefully as far as the Corps’ next objective. More planes eventually flew by, and he hoped they’d gotten the word.
Hours passed in the thick, humid heat within what was quickly becoming known as Rocky Gap, before advance scouts reported they were nearing the western end of the pass.
“Captain Saachic!” Flynn shouted. “Take your company forward, if you please, and scout the flanks as they broaden out. Then find us and the Sularans a couple of good places to park. You know what to look for. Remember, it may take a couple days for the entire corps to move up, so high ground would be nice. Feel free to detail a couple of platoons to begin laying out the position.”
“Yes, Colonel,” Saachic replied, whirling his mount. His orderly, mounted beside him, blew a series of shrill calls with his whistle.
The gap gradually widened, and the daylong tension caused by the confining passage began to ebb. A breeze stirred the regimental flags for the first time that day, and even if it was hot, it was welcome. Flynn didn’t know what he’d expected to find beyond the pass-maybe some kind of prairie, the way it had been described. It was a grassland, but the trees hadn’t surrendered to it entirely. They stood singly or in clumps amid and atop gently rolling hills. They didn’t look much different from the trees in the forest below, but the tall, straight trunks were bare much higher up and were topped with bright green leaves several shades lighter than the dark, thick grass. A line of denser trees followed the river that receded in the distance. In Flynn’s mind, it was beautiful country.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Bekiaa admitted beside him. “Maybe north Saylon is kind of the same, but the trees are different. Only at sea have I ever felt the world was so… big.”
“Yeah,” Flynn agreed. “There’s an awful lot of sky up there, and these craggy, hilly, mountainy things we passed through turn into real mountains to the south. See?” He pointed.
One of Saachic’s troopers galloped up and halted, his me-naak blowing. “Caap’n pick two hills,” he said, pointing north, then south. Flynn looked. Both were about the same size, but were a little farther apart than he would have preferred. As the rest of the corps moved up it would fill the space in between and have two solid anchors, however. When they advanced again, the leapfrogging would no longer be necessary. They should be able to rely on conventional scouting in the relatively open land ahead.
“Okay. We’ll take the northern position, as usual. Ride back until you meet the next company of the Sixth and lead it up. You can show ’em where to go. The First Sular won’t be far behind us.” He paused, looking out at the lovely landscape. Pretty land. Two perfect hills just a little too far apart… He shook his head. Getting paranoid. He knew he’d faced this new Grik general before, and the bastard was sneaky. He hated his guts but had to admire him too, compared to other Grik generals they’d faced. He rubbed his bristly chin, introspective. He wasn’t really a colonel, after all. His only infantry experience prior to this was as a corporal a quarter century ago. Maybe I should’ve stayed with Mr. Laumer and that goddamn sub, he thought.
He shook his head again. No, that Grik honcho may be sneaky, but taking advantage of this would take subtlety-and a lot better understanding of strategy and tactics than any Grik has ever shown. Flynn often based his decisions on what human-or ’Cat-opponents were likely to do and then threw in a double handful of “wild-ass Grik” to compensate for the unpredictable nature of the enemy, but he supposed he usually gave the Grik, and even their new leader, too much credit. Better safe than sorry. Right now he suspected he was giving the enemy way too much credit. He looked at the cav ’Cat. “Well, get on with it.”
“Yes, sur!” cried the ’Cat, and jangled away, back in the direction they’d come. Like all the cav, he held his shortened, carbine-length Baalkpan Arsenal musketoon tight against the sling that kept him from dropping it-but also let it beat the crap out of him if he didn’t hold it that way when his mount was moving quickly. Flynn thought the cav was probably the only Allied force in the west to retain the old smoothbores. His Marines had the Allin-Silva. 50–80 breechloaders and soon the whole army should, but the cav liked the ability to fire heavy loads of buckshot at close range.
The Rangers reached the summit of the low, broad hill and began digging in and throwing up breastworks around the perimeter. Axes thocked against the trees that stood fairly dense atop the hill, and the trunks and brush joined the defensive structure. Two batteries of artillery-a full dozen of the much-improved twelve-pounders-and carts of supplies loaded with food, ammunition, water butts, even the field transmitter/receiver joined them. The comm ’Cats in charge of the wireless set began to assemble the apparatus and prepared to string an aerial in the remaining trees. The 1st Battalion of the 2nd Marines maintained a rear guard back to the pass with their quick-firing breechloaders and another battery of guns, until the leading elements of the 1st Sular pushed out of the gap and headed toward their own position about seven hundred tails away. The Marines remained in place until the first Sularan companies began to establish themselves. Then they limbered their guns and pulled back toward the northern hill. By then, as the sun crept closer to the western horizon, two more companies of the 6th Cavalry had deployed in the mouth of the gap, screening the advance of the rest of the corps.
“That went very well,” a satisfied Bekiaa said to Flynn. “Though it has been a long day,” she amended. Everyone was tired, but Flynn had been limping slightly for most of the long march. In his forties, he’d spent most of his life in submarines. Those had been dangerous years, but they’d left him ill prepared for a return to infantry life and he ached from his back to his toes all the time, it seemed. Even his shoulder ached from carrying his ’03 Springfield. Sometimes in the past he rode a paalka to give his ankles a rest, but that day he’d refused.
“Mmm,” Flynn replied, listening. “Say, I think our long-range recon is coming back.”
The breeze was laying with the late afternoon, and soon the distinctive sound of Nancy engines was plain. “There they are!” someone cried as the planes grew against the evening sun. One plane banked toward the north hill, the other to the south, and streamers fluttered down. A rider fetched the closest one and brought it to Flynn. He unwrapped the note from the small rock it was tied around and spread the sheet to read it:
MANNY MANNY GRIK AT CROSROADS AROWND RIVER BRIJ ABOUT 80–90 MILES WEST YOR POSISHIN. MOST COMING FROM WEST OF THER, BUT SOM NORTH. SAW LOTS OF DINO COWS.
“Damn it, I knew it!” Flynn said, waving the sheet at the planes as they disappeared east over the crags. “I wish somebody would teach those airedales how to make a report, though. ‘Many’ is awful vague, and what were they doing? Were they crossing the river or just plopped there? And where were the dino-cows? Orderly!” he shouted.