“Here, sur,” came a voice directly behind him.
“Tell those comm ’Cats to get a move on. I need comm!”
In the distance, beyond South Hill, a rumbling, roaring horn suddenly sounded, and all conversation stopped. A second horn joined the first, then another. In seconds, the air was filled with the bone-chilling and utterly unmistakable bellows-powered calls that signaled a general Grik charge! The slopes beyond South Hill, so still and peaceful just moments before, erupted with movement as seemingly dozens of shapes burst from beneath every tree and joined the growing, howling swarm flowing down toward the narrow plain below the Sularan position.
“My God,” Flynn exclaimed. “That lizardy son of a skuggik really did it this time! He Custered us! Drummers, sound ‘Stand To’!”
“What does that mean, Colonel?” Bekiaa shouted over the thundering drums that suddenly competed with the horns. “What’s ‘Custered’? You said something like that in the highland pass on Ceylon, before the battle there.”
“General Halik, or whatever the hell his name is, figured out where we were going, how we were moving, then let us stick our necks through that damn, rocky noose! There were Grik all over those damn heights on our flanks all day, just waiting for this! He tried the same stunt in the highlands, but this time it worked-and I let it!”
“But their guns! The planes saw no artillery, and no way they could get any up there!”
“Don’t you get it? They don’t need artillery, not yet. They aren’t going after the whole corps right now, just us! They can keep General Maraan bottled up in the Rocky Gap while they eat us alive. Between us, the Marines, the Sularans, and the Cav, that’s around thirty-five hundred troops, and a fair-size chunk of Second Corps!”
A gun flashed on South Hill, downward and away, the vent jet stabbing at the sky. Then another fired. Both reports were drowned by the growing, snarling, hissing shriek of thousands of Grik charging down out of the hills, where they must have remained hidden to crossing aircraft.
“What have we got coming at us here?” Flynn demanded when a ’Cat lieutenant raced up from the west side of the hill.
“Nothing yet. They seem all go at First Sular, yonder. They lots still not to top of hill. No dig in.”
The sun had touched the horizon at last, and the long shadows would soon be replaced by a very long night. Musket flashes and more cannon firelit the distant hill.
“They mean to take us one at a time,” Flynn decided. “My guess is they’ve probably got a lot more out there than are even coming off the hills. Probably have some guns stashed too. If they wipe us out, or even if they don’t, they can keep Second Corps stopped up in that gap until that ‘many’ force gets here from the east. After that, it’s all attack, attack. Their kind of fight.”
“But even they get us, Second Corps get away!” the lieutenant said, blinking furiously.
“Boy, have you even been with us the last couple of days? Remember the dino-cows? They didn’t cook this up on the fly. I guarantee they’re hittin’ Second Corps from behind and in the flanks right damn now! They’ll cork General Maraan in that lousy gap from both sides!”
“But… well, what we do?” the young officer almost wailed.
“You’re relieved, Lieutenant,” Flynn said, almost gently. “At least until you pull yourself together.” He looked at those who’d gathered around him. “ All of us better do that right quick, or we’ve had it. Saachic!”
“Sur?”
“Take all the cav and scoop up both companies of the Sixth in the gap. Whoever’s behind ’em will have to take the load when it lands. After that, haul ass to South Hill. If it looks like they can hold off the first shove, help them do it, then tell them to run, not walk, the hell over here.”
“Yes, sur… but what if they not holding?”
Flynn took a breath. “Then spike what guns you can and get everybody out who can climb in the saddle with you. We’ll cover your run back here.”
“Meanies don’t like extra riders,” Saachic warned. “And even if we all get some, we can’t get all.”
“I know.”
The battle for South Hill intensified as darkness fell, flaring and slashing with fire. Every instinct Flynn had told him to march to the aid of the Sularans, but he knew that was probably exactly what the Grik wanted him to do. With the darkness, he had no way of knowing how the enemy deployment was developing. The cavalry was keeping a clear line of communication between the hills-the Grik seemed to respect their me-naaks-but he already had reports of Grik circling around South Hill to threaten that line. One way or the other, the Sularans had to pull back here soon.
In the meantime, his Rangers were digging like fiends and heaping the damp earth in front of their lines. Stakes were being cut, sharpened, and driven into the ground, and details were busy spooling out the new barbed wire they’d just recently received from Baalkpan. It was crummy, lightweight stuff compared to what Flynn had seen in France as a youngster, but this would be the first time the Grik ever ran into such an entanglement, and it was going to cost them. Other details were starting work on several bunkers to give them some overhead protection, and revetments were taking shape around the guns. The Marines maintained their position on the south side of the hill, throwing breastworks in front of their own forward battery, which was prepared to fire down the flanks of the gap held by the cavalry when the Sularans finally came out. When they were withdrawn into the fortifications, their guns would serve as a mobile reserve for any hot spots that might develop.
Flynn looked around. He’d done his best to prepare, he thought. There was little more he could do but make North Hill so costly to take that the Grik would choke on it.
“Col-nol Flynn! Col-nol Flynn!” he heard called in the deepening gloom.
“Here!”
One of the comm ’Cats hopped closer. “Col-nol, we got contact with Maa-draas HQ! Gener-aal Taa-leen wants to know what the hell is going on! We can’t get Division or Corps. Them damn hills round the pass block us, I bet.”
“I’m on my way.” He paused for an instant, listening. High above, he heard the sound of motors, lots of them, and they weren’t Nancys. The night suddenly brightened with the lights of what looked like falling meteors that illuminated the bellies of Grik zeppelins in the sky. The things didn’t light up until they’d fallen some distance from the ships, and he guessed that made sense. They were using some kind of delayed-ignition system to protect their hydrogen-filled airships. The first meteor struck out on the plain and burst amid a roiling ball of spreading flames. It was followed by many more. None landed on North Hill. They probably couldn’t see it in the dark. Some probably burned Grik when they fell, but several splashed fire on South Hill, and Flynn swore.
“C’mon,” he said to the ’Cat. “Now they’re throwing Grik fire at us! If the Air Corps can’t keep those bastards off us, they’ll burn us out for sure!”
“What the hell’s going on out there?” General Pete Alden demanded, storming into the briefing room adjacent to the comm shack in Madras.
General Taa-leen commanded 1st Division, and while it occupied the city, he was essentially Pete’s Chief of Staff. “A counterattack, General. A big one. Beyond that?” Taa-leen spread his arms.
“Where?” Pete asked, shoving through milling, confused staff officers to stand before the most current map they had, tacked to the wall. He did a double take when he saw Hij-Geerki lying on a pair of the common Lemurian cushions in a corner, as inconspicuous as he could make himself. He’d thought Rolak had taken his pet Grik south. He shook the distraction away.