Ignoring the screams from inside, he scuttled to the door, shrugged out of the satchel charge, then tried the latch. Unlocked! Bullets smacked the turret near him. He depressed the igniter, stepped behind the edge of the armorsteel door, and opened it. Someone inside fired blindly, bullets spanging on the bulwark behind him. He slung the thirty-pound charge in by a shoulder strap, slammed the door and fled in a crouch, around the curve of the turret to the grapple and over the railing, not bothering with the seat. He started down hand over hand. I should have thrown a fragmentation grenade in ahead of the charge, he thought. Someone in there's still alive and fighting. If he brings the charge out and throws it over the railing, I'm a goner.
He heard the roar, and knew he'd pulled it off, but had no time to exult. Still thirty feet up, a burst of blaster fire passed too near. He slid-would have let go and free-fallen if it weren't for the concrete slab beneath him. Almost at the bottom, he gripped the rope hard again, braking, felt searing pain in his palms, and hit the slab hard enough his knees buckled, aware that another burst of blaster fire had missed him as he'd dropped. He sprinted for the trees.
"Here!" Jael almost screamed it as she stepped into sight, and he veered toward her. "Folks are pulling back!" He realized he'd heard that on his helmet comm, and ignored it. Together they ran, Jael leading. Not northward toward where the company had landed, but westward, toward the curving river. Northward would take them into a no-man's-land.
Ensign Kemau Zenawi Singh arrived in a staggering run, carrying a man who weighed more than he did. Wyzhnyny weapons racketed behind him. Crossing the break of the bulldozed bank, Zenawi hit the sandy slope on his butt, sliding feetfirst. Company medics were working on wounded. He rolled the body off his shoulder. "It's Captain Mulvaney!" he gasped, then lay back heaving for breath. "Somebody get Lieutenant Bremer!"
He'd passed Bremer and hadn't noticed. Now the lieutenant appeared beside him. "What? Captain Mulvaney?"
"Yessir. Hit by a bullet. It exited through his face, his mouth. We were heading back here and suddenly he went down. I think he was hit again, while I was carrying him."
"Blessed Gopal!"
"You're in charge now, sir."
Bremer turned to look at Mulvaney, but a kneeling medic was in the way. "Sir," the medic said without looking back, "the captain is dead. Bullet through the brain."
Bremer sounded unbelieving. "Don't just… " He groped for an appropriate word. "Just kneel there! Give him something!"
"I have, sir. Stasis 1. But it's too late, believe me." He rose to a crouch and started back to the wounded.
Bremer turned again to Zenawi. "Kemau," he said, "what do I do?" His eyes looked large, desperate.
"Sir, you know the situation better than I do. But I presume we have a defense perimeter covering the beach."
Bremer's head bobbed rapidly. "Yes. Of course. Of course."
"I'd hole up here on the beach and give the rest of the men time to get here. Then take to the boats and go downstream."
"Downstream? Good lord, man! Downstream is the wrong direction." Bremer sounded close to panic.
"Downstream," Zenawi repeated calmly. "It's in the plan. That's where they're supposed to pick us up. Unload on the other side, far enough away that hopefully the evacuation floaters can get in safely and land. The last I knew, the enemy still held the southwest tower."
Bremer was breathing hard now, hyperventilating. "We have men in the park here. We can't leave them. We'll simply have to charge! Clear the Wyzhnyny from the park and bring out the casualties."
Zenawi's hand gripped his wrist. "Don't order it, sir. Every man in your company will die. You'll carry the weight of it on your soul forever."
Forever was how long Bremer's stricken expression would stay with Zenawi; the XO was over the edge. "Let me take care of it for you, sir," Zenawi said, and clicked his all-personnel channel. "B Company, this is Zenawi for the company commander. Perimeter, hold fast. The rest of you retreat to the beach in an orderly manner!" He repeated it. "In three minutes we begin evacuation. In three minutes we begin evacuation. Perimeter, don't shoot anything on two legs!"
Jael and Esau reached the river downstream from where the Wyzhnyny had bulldozed the riverbank. Going over the levee top, they picked their way along the steep sideslope, gripping brush on the levee brow to keep from sliding into the water. Esau wasn't even aware now of his torn palms. In two or three minutes they were within the Jerrie perimeter undetected. Overhead, bullets popped, ricochets sang, blaster pulses hissed. It was then they heard Zenawi's order. Ahead they saw men kneeling on the smoothed-down beach. A moment later they reached it, and crouching, trotted to the officers they could see.
"I need to report to Captain Mulvaney," Esau said.
Lieutenant Bremer, the tallest man in the company, rose abruptly, as if there were no hostile fire. His face twisted. "Wesley!" he snapped, "where's your rifle? And your pack?"
"Sir, they're back under the southwest tower. I… "
"GO GET IT, SOLDIER! RIGHT NOW!" His face swelled with sudden rage. "GET THAT SONOFABITCH OR I'LL SHOOT YOU FOR COWARDICE!"
Esau stepped backward as if slapped.
A black hand gripped Bremer by a sleeve, pulling him down, and the XO went suddenly slack. "Sir," Zenawi said, "Captain Mulvaney ordered Wesley to the southwest tower. Let's hear what he has to report." Zenawi's black face turned to Esau. "Captain Mulvaney is dead, soldier. Is the southwest tower disabled?"
Esau was still in shock at Bremer's outburst. It was Jael who answered. "Yessir. Esau disabled it, sir. That's why he doesn't have his blaster. The tower team was all dead, but there was a grapple gun laying there, and a satchel charge, so he went up alone, all that way. Threw a phosporous grenade in the window where the guns shoot out; I could hear them screaming up there, clear from where I was. Then he threw the satchel charge in and came back over the railing, and slid down the rope. And the turret blew up! The steel door flew off the hinges, off into the trees, and Wyz on the ground were shooting at Esau, so's he fell the last ways. And lit on his feet! Then we ran!" She paused. "And now here we are."
Zenawi peered at her, then looked at Esau again. "Good work, Wesley!" he said. "Now you better get your head down. Be a shame to get killed before you even get your medal." Still stunned, Esau squatted, and Zenawi reached out. They shook hands. The officer felt the wet stickiness, different than the feel of blood, and retrieving his own hand, glanced at it before turning to Bremer again. "What Wesley did was worth a medal, wouldn't you say so, sir?"
Bremer's nods were like twitches, the sight penetrating Esau's shock. The XO had lost his mind!
While they'd talked, the Wyzhnyny fire had slackened. Now it stopped entirely. The silence was eerie. The only voice Esau could hear was Lieutenant Zenawi reporting to Division: "The flak towers have been taken out. Send medivacs, APFs and fighter cover."
The group on the beach looked at each other, then at the woods. Along the Jerrie perimeter, men lay or knelt, holding their breath. Those who hadn't already fixed bayonets, did so. Surely the enemy was about to charge. It seemed to Esau that if they tried to evacuate, they'd be overrun while loading the wounded on the boats.
An interminable minute passed. Two. Abruptly the woods in front of them erupted with crashes of exploding antipersonnel rockets, and the formless roar of multibarrelled slammers sounding from the sky. Zenawi reacted at once, his words broadcast wide band. "Everyone to the boats! Head downstream! That's downstream. Fighter command, we're under air attack. APFs, pick us up at rendezvous, half a mile downstream, on the west bank where the woods pinch out!"