Probably a few paid for that with their lives, too. Riordan nodded. “That puts the bad guys about three minutes behind us, maybe four. Get to your positions.” He pulled out one of the pop-flares that had been in their emergency signaling kits. “If they don’t attack where or as we expect, commence firing on my signal.”
“Yeah, but—”
“What is it, Dora?”
“Captain”—it was the first time she had used his title—“what then? We don’t have any dance steps beyond this part of the song.”
Riordan nodded, pulled himself up the bank toward his own position, which was built more for concealment than protection. “That’s because this is the end of the choreography. After this, you split up and try to survive. I’m guessing we’ve already hit them harder than they expected. If we take out some more of them, they may be too thin on the ground to find us all. I suspect they never had a long operational window. And since that wasn’t one of their boats roaring overhead, and we’ve got some help on the ground now, I’ll bet the window is closing even faster than they expected. So, once we abandon these positions, our only objective is to stay alive by staying lost.”
Riordan slumped down into his position; the three were still standing nearby, watching — waiting? “You’ve done a great job,” he told them. “Do it just a little longer. Now, get moving. They’ll be here soon.” They silently went to their shallow holes, Xue near Caine in the center, Macmillan and Veriden to either flank.
Thnessfiirm’s voice was tremulous behind him. “I do not understand the ways of making war well, but—”
“Yes?”
“I have observed the power of the weapon you gave to Ms. Veriden. Would that not be better placed in the center, where it can bear upon more of the streambed?”
Riordan smiled. “That’s an excellent question.” He rose, stood behind the crook of a tuber tree, laid the targeting wand in it, peered down its surprisingly good scope. “And normally, you would be right. But that tactic would be best if we actually wanted to cover the most ground and inflict the most casualties with her assault rifle.”
“Is that not what you wish to accomplish?”
“No: this time, I want the attackers to avoid it.” Riordan, satisfied with the scope’s placement, held out a hand. “May I have the activation rings for the remaining rockets on the AMP?”
Thnessfiirm handed them over. “You want your enemies to avoid your best weapon? I do not understand.”
“Sometimes,” Riordan explained, “the best use of a weapon is to influence your enemy’s behavior. In this case, where they decide to charge us. I am fairly sure they would prefer to go through Dora’s position: it’s the furthest from the river, and the driest. But when they probe our line, they will discover that the center and the flank closest to the river will have the weakest defensive fire.”
Thnessfiirm’s neck oscillated slightly. “And so you anticipate they will change their point of attack to those less daunting areas.”
Riordan shrugged. “I sure hope so.” Xue, whose position was slightly forward of Caine’s, waved twice. “And I think we’re about to find out.”
On the opposite side of the streambed, there was faint movement in the lowest levels of the fronds. Thnessfiirm pointed to a flight of smaller sloohavs which rose up in pairs: released by the convectorae, it confirmed that the enemy had reached the old streambed at that point. More pairs rose skyward farther up the dead watercourse; none appeared from the stretch where it neared the river.
“As you projected,” Thnessfiirm purred.
Riordan shook his head. “No real surprise. They’re on foot, so they are going to want the most solid and most narrow stretch of open ground to cross. Once they are in the trees on our side of the streambed, they know we’ve lost the battle. Their shotguns will then be at optimum range, and they’d overrun us. It would be suicide for us to even put up our heads, and certain death to remain in our positions while their riflemen flank us.” He adjusted the sighting of the targeting wand. “The convectorae did an excellent job of concealing our positions. If the attackers don’t have thermal goggles, I doubt they will pick us out before we start firing.”
“Hiding,” Thnessfiirm explained with a tremor in her neck, “is our accustomed means of dealing with threats.”
Riordan nodded, reflected that this would have been an excellent place to begin an important cross-species discussion, but there were far more important matters at hand—
From the brush line where the flights of sloohavs had risen up, a few fleeting figures — clones — darted into the old streambed. They vanished into the patchy, shoulder-high mix of tuber-saplings and fronds, riddled with the spiky marsh grass. Their initial rush slowed rapidly; the ground underfoot was no longer a fen, but it was not fully solid, either.
Caine made his observations in a quiet voice aimed at Xue’s back. “Looks like two scouts probing further up the streambed, two more coming straight across.”
Xue turned his head a few degrees, nodded. “Yes, sir.”
The intermittent growth in the otherwise open ground forced the enemy’s scouts to advance in leaps and starts, rushing from one covered position to another. When the upstream group got within fifty meters of Dora’s position, her Pindad spat forcefully. Bits of vegetation flew up as one of the figures fell; he hit the ground, groaning. The other disappeared but the tops of the stiff grass trembled on a reverse course that led back toward a thick clump of ferns: the closest available heavy cover.
The two scouts in front of Caine’s position paused, then continued forward. “Prepare to fire,” he ordered Xue.
Whose back straightened in surprise. “At this range, sir? With the nine-millimeter, I won’t be—”
“Just do as I say, Mr. Xue. We want them to think we’re weak here.”
And the anemic performance of the nine-millimeter slugs, fired at about fifty yards, accomplished just that. Of four rounds fired at a brisk pace, only one hit; the target fell but remained capable of cursing and counterfiring. Xue ducked back down.
Thnessfiirm’s necked goggled at the strange silence that settled over the streambed. “And now what?”
“And now, we wait.”
“How long?”
“Thirty seconds, maybe a minute. They are not going to want to give us a chance to change positions.”
“Why?”
“Because right now, they know where most of our shooters are and they will want to hit those positions with suppressive fire while the bulk of their forces charge across the streambed. That’s why they probed us first; to determine where—”
The distinctive stutters of Pindads snapped at them from the far side of the streambed. Nearby tree trunks spat out splinters; fronds bowed and fell; leaves fluttered in colorful swirls of agitation. Caine, hunkering a bit lower, peered towards Dora’s position: she was getting her fair share of suppressive fire as well, but far less that Xue was taking. “They’ve made their choice,” Riordan reported to Thnessfiirm. “Get back to the AMP. If there is any malfunction with this control, you will need to fire the rockets manually.”
“How many?” Thnessfiirm asked.
The throaty clatter of an automatic shotgun preceded a shredding of the vegetation around both Xue and Riordan. The clones were spraying and praying, but at ranges under one hundred meters, it was effective enough to prompt Caine to think about saying a few prayers of his own. He lifted his head up after the wave of devastation had passed, asked, “What do you mean, ‘how many’?”