“It would seem our friends are preparing to return,” Rolak stated dryly.
“Swell. Can the guns on that side of the fort keep firing?” Chapelle asked.
“God, I hope so,” answered Brister. “Just don’t shoot at the bay anymore!”
“I still don’t know what you hope to accomplish by this!” Shinya hissed low, as they trotted back across the center of the fort.
“Maybe nothing,” Brister replied. “Maybe everything.”
Pete Alden’s new forward command post occupied a multistory dwelling belonging to one of Baalkpan’s more affluent textile merchants. Like many of her class, she hadn’t originally been a member of the “run away” party, but she’d joined it quickly enough when Fristar abandoned the defenders. Pete didn’t care. All that mattered was that the dwelling afforded an excellent view of the entire south wall. The enemy facing it continued to swell far beyond the initial force that landed north of the Clump and occupied the fort road. Ever since the fort was cut off, thousands upon thousands of lizards had poured through the gap, up the road, and out through the cut, where they deployed into a mile-wide front with their backs to the jungle. Round shot bounded through their ranks from across the killing field the People had cut with such effort. Each shot killed some of the enemy, plowing through their densely packed ranks, but the fire had a negligible real effect. Pete thought it was probably good for the gunners’ morale, though, faced as they were with what stood before them. If the Baalkpan defenders had a wealth of anything, it was powder and shot for their guns. Let them shoot.
He’d have been happy to let the mortars fire as well, and they might have wreaked some real havoc, but they didn’t have as many of the bombs, and the range was a little far-for now. His reserve mortar teams were rushing from the center of the city, and when they arrived he’d have thirty of the heavy bronze tubes at his disposal. He hoped the copper, pineapple grenade-shaped bombs would dilute the force of the Grik assault when it came, preventing it from hitting his defenses as a cohesive mass. Canister ought to blunt the spearhead; hopefully the bombs would shatter the shaft. No was wait and listen as the reports flooded in.
Chack and Queen Maraan scaled the ladder behind him from the level below. A signaler escorted them to his side.
“The First Marines have deployed in support of the Manila volunteers,” Chack said, saluting. As always, the powerful young ’Cat wore his dented helmet at a jaunty angle, and a Krag was slung over his shoulder.
“The Six Hundred and the Fifth Baalkpan are in place as well,” Safir Maraan reported in a husky tone. She was dressed all in black, as usual, and her silver armor was polished to a high sheen.
“Good,” Alden murmured. “We’re going to need them.”
“It’s certainly shaping up to be a most memorable battle,” the queen observed.
“And how,” said Chack, using the term he often heard the destroyermen use. He stood on his toe pads and peered out over the wall. From across the field beyond came the familiar strident, thrumming squawk of hundreds of Grik horns, and the hair-raising, thundering staccato of tens of thousands of Grik swords and spears pounding on shields commenced. “I think they’re about to come,” he said, turning to Pete. “With your permission?”
“You bet. Give ’em hell.”
For just an instant, as he passed her, Chack paused beside Safir. Reaching out, he gently cradled her elbow in his hand. They blinked at each other, and then he was gone. The Orphan Queen’s eyes never left him until he disappeared from sight.
“Gen-er-al Aal-den?” she asked.
Pete nodded, still looking at the enemy. “Yes. Go. I think Chack’s right.” He turned to look at her. “Be careful, Your Highness. I expect I’ll be down directly.”
“The waterfront’s in for it,” Dowden observed, peering through his binoculars. The cork in the center of the enemy advance was out of the bottle, and dozens of red-hulled ships were streaming toward the docks. Most of the mines were gone. Clusters of barrels still floated in the bay, giving the impression that mines remained a hazard, but the Grik avoided those that they could. Kas – Ra – Ar ’s smoldering wreck had finally slipped, hissing steam, beneath the water of the bay, and Matt had ordered Tolson, the last shattered, leaking frigate, to disengage. Her captain, Pruit Barry, signaled a protest, but Matt repeated the order and Tolson was retiring sluggishly, reluctantly, from the fight. She’d given a good account of herself, surely destroying the last of the gun-armed enemy ships in the center, but she’d paid a terrible price. Her sails were tattered rags, and her foremast was gone. Matt only hoped she’d reach shallow water before she sank. The heavy guns of the waterfront defenses opened up as the enemy approached and tore them apart, but unlike the plunging fire from the fort, fewer of the hits were immediately fatal or disabling. In their same old way, the Grik just kept charging through.
“Can’t be helped,” Matt ground out. Her ammunition nearly exhausted, Walker had only two obpt most of them drawn in its direction. Mainly, though, Walker had to remain visible in the bay until Amagi arrived. So far the Japanese battle cruiser was taking her own sweet time. That was as they’d hoped, from a naval perspective, thought Matt, glancing at the setting sun. They’d savaged the Grik fleet without Amagi to protect it, and Walker would be a more difficult target in the dark. But in the meantime people were dying. There’d been no word from Fort Atkinson since it was smothered beneath several ten-inch salvos. Smoke still rose from there, so fighting clearly continued, but the guns overlooking the entrance to the bay were silent.
A continuous, impenetrable pall of smoke obscured the south side of the city as well, and no one on Walker could tell what was going on from her station across the bay. Matt now knew he’d been naive to think he could control the battle from his ship. He could transmit, and presumably someone could hear him, but he couldn’t see any of his friends’ signals at all. It was beyond frustrating, and there was nothing he could do but trust the people on the spot. They were good people, and his presence probably wouldn’t make any difference, but it was nerve-racking all the same. Letts had managed to get a single message to him by means of a small, swift felucca. Several major assaults against the south wall had been repulsed so far, but the last attack had been costly, and actually made it past the moat to the very top of the wall. Most of the casualties suffered by the defenders came from blizzards of crossbow bolts, but the enemy was also employing a smaller version of their bomb thrower they hadn’t seen before. Several Grik would carry the machine between them, and once it was emplaced they could hurl a small bomb about the size of a coconut almost two hundred yards. The weapon had little explosive force, but like the larger ones it dispersed flaming sap in all directions when it burst. It was a terrible device, and the Grik had an endless supply.
Most of the reserve had already been committed, but more Grik continued pouring through the gap and up the fort road. Letts had been forced to strip defenders from unengaged sections of the wall, even as the invading army lapped around to the northeast to threaten there as well. With this new attack on the waterfront, things would get tight.
“Send a message to HQ. Tell them they’re going to have a lot of company along the dock, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“They probably know that already, Skipper.”
Matt shrugged. “All the same…” The rattling drone of distressed motors distracted him, and he looked again toward the wreck-jumbled harbor mouth. The PBY was returning from somewhere beyond, its latest load of depth charges gone. Gray smoke streamed from the starboard engine, and the plane, less than a hundred feet in the air, clawed for altitude.