CHAPTER 28
////// II Corps
General Queen Safir Maraan and 6th Division were in the first Grik trenchline now, and the bright morning had been strangled by an opaque haze of smoke and dust beneath a growing pall of darkening skies. A few raindrops were beginning to fall, as if shaken from the air by the concussive thud of artillery and constant crackle of rifle fire. She’d lost track of General Grisa somewhere on the long, corpse-strewn beach behind, between their initial landing point and here. But a pair of signal ’Cats with one of the new field telephones remained beside her, unspooling wire. The charge across the naked beach had been one of the most unnerving events of the entire war for her thus far. She knew her beloved Chack had done much the same against equally implacable foes in the East, and she’d run into a defensive Grik position herself once before, but this was the first time she’d ever slammed a charge home, directly into bristling spears, cannon muzzles, and withering crossbow and musket fire. The 6th was fortunate that these Grik, though clearly able to defend, didn’t have much practice at it, and the wild melee in the trench itself had been equally awkward and terrifying for both sides. The better discipline and firepower of Safir’s troops had been the only, final, advantage.
She looked around at the panting faces nearby, and saw the furtive, fearful blinking of those who were scampering back and forth, rejoining their companies and squads, all while nervously wading through the carpet of dead in the bottom of the trench. Fortunately, most of those corpses were Grik, but many troopers bayoneted bodies as a matter of course before moving along. She understood how they felt. These were veteran troops, but though they’d fought from trenches before, this was the first time they’d ever captured one. With so many Grik this close, actually touching them, after what they’d just been through . . . it was only natural they wanted to make sure they were all entirely dead.
She looked back to the front, taking a small sip from her canteen, and noticed her hand was trembling. She quickly lowered it, hoping no one had seen. By the Sun above, she wished Chack were beside her! Or perhaps even better just then, her old nemesis turned virtual father, General Lord Muln Rolak! Doubtless he’d be chatting away about the situation in his calming way. She took a deep breath and almost gagged. The stench of the dead, of the gore and voided bowels, was bad enough, but the reek of the place itself was beginning to get to her. It was an ancient, all-pervading thing that she’d begun to notice as they advanced farther from the cleansing shore. The Jaap, Mi-yaata, had warned them of it, proposing that it was caused by eons of Grik, defecating wherever they liked outside, and Safir uncomfortably wondered how much of the dusty soil she’d breathed was composed of age-old Grik dung. She shook her head and coughed.
“If it rains, it might settle this dust, and perhaps some of the smoke,” one of the comm-’Cats suggested hopefully, as if reading her thoughts.
“Let us hope so,” she replied. “It may render their matchlock muskets useless as well. Contact the comm section on the beach and have them move the TBS set forward to the trench where it will be better protected. I also want a line to all other division commanders as soon as possible, so we may better coordinate our next advance. The Grik have retreated, but only to another defensive line. I want naval gunfire from the frigates offshore placed on that position, and as much air support as can be spared.” She paused. “Any word yet on General Grisa’s whereabouts?”
“I will ask if he has . . . gone back to the beach,” the ’Cat said, and Safir nodded solemnly. The wounded and dead were being taken there to be carried out to the ships in their remaining landing boats.
“Please do, and have someone look for him specifically if he has not been seen.” She felt a twinge of guilt over the harsh words she’d spoken to Grisa. He’d only been doing what he thought was expected of him before, but he’d charged just as enthusiastically as anyone when she made his orders more specific. She prayed he was well. A squall marched across the anchorage in the distance, but didn’t quell the smoke; it only added vast plumes of steam to the impenetrable curtain over the remains of the Grik fleet. She was satisfied with that, at least. As always, Captain Reddy and USS Walker had done their part. She suspected that Irvin Laumer’s “mosquito fleet” had done much as well. She heard the comm-’Cat talking but was too absorbed by the sight of the destruction they’d wrought on this vile, ancient city, and her gaze was drawn past the next enemy trenchline to the vast, round-topped structure south of the harbor, just beginning to appear through the haze. There you are, she thought. And we are coming for you!
Mortar crews were clearing bodies and hacking at the earthen trench to give themselves a better angle, but at present, no Allied cannon were firing except those out on the ships, their smoke-tailed case shot beginning to explode on or above the enemy. Safir’s light guns couldn’t be brought down in the trench, and even if they were, they couldn’t fire westward. Not yet. For now they stood in the open, having been brought up by hand, their crews safely under cover while they too labored to clear emplacements for them. Quite a few Grik guns had been captured, but even as they turned them against their former owners, they faced a similar problem.
“My queen!” the comm-’Cat said urgently. “Waa-kur is aground at the mouth of the bay! Thousands of Grik are massing to attack her across a low-tide sandbar! Chairman Adar asks if we can press the enemy here more vigorously to prevent more Grik being sent against Cap-i-taan Reddy! He also desires to know if we can secure the zeppelin field closer to the city for our planes with fixed landing gear to use.”
Safir blinked concern, but then her tail slashed the air indignantly. “Tell Chairman Adar that we already press the Grik as hard as we can, and will resume our advance as soon as we reorganize from the last one!” She regretted her harsh tone as soon as the words left her mouth, but continued without altering it. “More air and naval artillery support will help, as would the reserve division aboard Amer-i-ka! Our losses have not been insignificant!”
The comm-’Cat repeated her words, then listened for a moment. He looked at her, blinking, his own tail swishing back and forth. “Chairman Adar says it is imperative that we take the airfield, because Salissa may not be able to launch or recover aircraft much longer. In the meantime, we will get all the air support that can be spared,” he told her, “but there will be no more ships than those already at our disposal—and no reinforcements either. Every other ship, and anyone able to bear arms, in fact, will make another landing in the harbor itself, after the tide turns! Chairman Adar says that he would be . . . obliged if Second Corps might meet him there!”
Safir Maraan swore softly, closing her eyes. Then she looked at the strengthening enemy position about two hundred tails away, and knew the airfield lay a few hundred tails beyond. The new line didn’t have as much artillery as the first one, it didn’t seem, but their attack would be costly. The Grik might not have proper canister—which suddenly made a kind of sense to her. Canister was a strictly defensive weapon, and if the enemy was just learning the concept of defense, the proper tools might take a while to be employed. But it had learned to stuff its barrels with whatever was at hand, from nails, to rocks and musket balls. There were many more Grik awaiting them now as well, and the next line was all that remained between II Corps and the bizarre warren of mud hovels that was Grik City itself.
“Tell Chairman Adar that we will try,” she said at last. Just then, several sputtering arcs of flame hurtled skyward from the Grik position, almost simultaneously, trailing large, burning spheres. With uncanny, unprecedented accuracy, all of them came down right in the very trench the 6th Division occupied. The spheres burst on contact, washing dozens of Lemurian troops with a viscous, flaring, saplike compound they’d always called “Grik Fire.” Horrible screams tortured Safir’s soul, and many screamed in sympathetic pain or outrage. “They knew we would take this trench!” Safir cried in fury. “They knew—and they already had it targeted!” She spun to the comm’Cat, who’d essentially become her personal talker. “Inform the other commands immediately!” she shouted, then turned in time to see another pair of flaming spheres climb into the gray sky. “Tell Adar we will meet him at the harbor or die trying. We certainly cannot stay here!”
Grik City
Silva’s landing party trotted carefully, watchfully, through the empty warehouses bordering the waterfront. Their shoes and the sandaled feet of the Lemurian Marines on the concrete-hard earth inside echoed loudly in the cavernous buildings. There was a jangle of equipment and weapons too. Silva was as well armed as usual, even if he’d left his precious “Doom Stomper” behind. He had a Thompson SMG, his 1911 Colt, trusty cutlass, and 1903 Springfield bayonet. He also carried a shoulder bag full of grenades and had magazine pouches all over him. Oddly, as always, an ornately made, long-barreled flintlock pistol dangled from his belt by a hook. Only a few people knew why. Gunny Horn was actually more heavily laden for once, with a BAR, pistol, and just as many magazines and grenades. Herring and Pack Rat both had Springfields, Pam carried her Blitzer Bug, and Laumer had his shotgun. Like the Lemurian Marines that accompanied them, Lawrence carried an Allin-Silva breechloader. Everyone had cutlasses, pistols, and a bayonet, if their weapon would accept one. Isak carried the only Krag, which didn’t make sense from a perspective of ammo interchangeability, but he liked it because it didn’t kick much.
At first, they’d advanced in rushes, covering one another as they did, but so far they hadn’t encountered any Grik at all, not even the “civilian” sort that were a kind of nonmilitary Hij. They’d first encountered such as those when they “captured” Hij Geerki at Raan-goon, but there were many more in Colombo at Saay-lon. Strangely, most of those had been slaughtered by their own kind, or took their own lives. Nothing like that seemed to have happened here, though; the warehouses were just empty of life. That didn’t mean they were empty of other things, and first Herring, then Pam and Pack Rat, stopped to gaze about at the tons and tons of crudely made but now-familiar Grik ordnance arrayed within the recently constructed buildings.
“Quit loafin’!” Silva called back from the lead. “So there’s a bunch o’ cannons and such. Whoop-te-do. We got a chore to attend to!” He coughed. “Gaad, Larry! Was that you?”
Lawrence stared daggers at Dennis. “No! It’s not I!”
“Wull . . . somethin’ sure stinks!”
“Somethin’ Stinks!” Petey whined on Silva’s shoulder as he gaped nervously about.
“I told everyone at a meeting Commander Herring attended that the city had an . . . unpleasant odor,” Miyata informed him. Herring had raised a cloth to his nose when they stopped.
“Did you tell ’em it stinks worse than a dead skunk’s ass? ’Cause Mr. Herring didn’t see fit to pass that along.”
“I meant to say something about it,” Herring gasped. “I’m afraid, under the circumstances, I entirely forgot.”
“Hard to forget,” Horn hacked.
“I personally would not know to compare this smell to a, um, ‘dead skunk’s ass,’” Miyata said, “though I am pleased to defer to your greater knowledge, Chief Silva.”
Dennis looked at the Japanese officer, stunned. Then he barked a laugh. “I’ll be damned! I like you.”
“Si-vaa’s an expert on all kinds o’ stinky stuff,” Pack Rat supplied, blinking amusement.
“Shuddup, you. I know you’re the stinkiest ’Cat I know.” He cocked his head back at Miyata. “Never met a Jap with a sense of humor before, not even Shinya,” he complimented in his way. “Is it as bad as this in the palace?”
Miyata considered. “No. I only ever visited the lower regions—the ‘dungeon,’ perhaps?—and even there it was not as bad. It was not really better, but it was more bearable.”
“At this rate we’ll be used to it by the time we get there,” Pam said with a snort. “I thought we were in a hurry.”
Dennis ignored her jab. “Not many more o’ these warehouses up ahead,” he judged, looking through a gaping opening before him. There were no doors on the buildings. “Just adobe-like huts an’ such like they have ever’where else we been. Kinda tangly lookin’ too. If they’re gonna jump us, in amongst that rat maze is where I’d expect trouble.”
Laumer hefted his shotgun. “Then we may as well get on with it.”
Grik City really was a maze in the sense that there was no organization to the various pathways at all, and the “rat” part of the description was reinforced by the profound and comprehensive nature of the filth and detritus they hurried through. The rain had stopped, but the hard-packed ground had turned to a sticky, slippery caliche that clung to their shoes, weighting their steps, and making their footing treacherous. Pam constantly murmured about disease and warned them all against cutting themselves on the shards of bone as thickly mixed with the dull mud as gravel might’ve been. Despite all that, the ’Cats finally removed their sandals with her reluctant blessing. They blinked disgust at the thought of what they were treading through, but it was getting between their feet and their hard soles, making injuries more likely, not less. There was no help for it.
Every so often they saw a Grik, or a small group of them hurrying in a generally eastward direction, and those in the party slammed to a stop or flattened themselves against one of the muddy buildings. Few of the Grik they saw appeared to be warriors, however, and all were moving with an apparently single-minded purpose that helped prevent them from noticing the intruders. Of course, they were deep within the very loathsome center of all Grik existence, and it likely never occurred to any of them that there might possibly be intruders there. Dennis, Laumer, and Commander Herring all concurred that they must not shoot unless absolutely necessary. With all the tumult, the firing might never be noticed, but if it was, they could be badly surrounded very quickly. At the very least, they might get cut off from their objective.
Eventually they saw no more Grik, and they quickened their pace through that part of the city. None of the structures was particularly tall, but the tracks were narrow enough that they often lost sight of the imposing palace. Without the sun to guide them, Silva relied on his trusty compass: a small thing the size of a pocket watch, with USN engraved on the push-button lid. At least until they got close enough that the palace loomed over them regardless of the obstacles. All they had to do then was keep moving in its general direction. On they went, as fast as they could, panting in the vile, dank air; all thought of stealth rapidly fading as they struggled through the mud and fug. Above all, the dull booming and muffled crackle of battle urged them on.
“Buggers the mind,” Silva gasped, breathing hard for the first time in anyone’s memory. Most of them, and Herring in particular, couldn’t have said anything at all just then. “To think they wanna turn the whole world into a shithole like this. They can’t all live like this!”
“They don’t,” Lawrence replied around his lolling tongue, nodding forward. Just ahead, beyond a narrow alley, stood a mixed rock and adobe wall about six feet high. It was clearly a demarcation between the “slum” the majority of Grik infested, and a region of more angular, less congested architecture sprawling at the foot of the mountainous palace.
Everyone crowded forward to see. “It has long been known that there are two basic ‘classes’ of Grik,” Herring managed, still breathing hard.
“You don’t say?” Pam quipped sarcastically.
Herring ignored her and continued. “There are the warrior-worker ‘Uul,’ and the ‘Hij,’ who do all the actual thinking. No Uul would have any sort of separate dwelling of its own, even as execrable as those we’ve just passed through, so some level of Hij had to inhabit that area. Obviously, there are various subclasses among the Hij as well, and the more prominent among them, for whatever reason, must reside beyond that wall.”
“Very astute, Commander Herring,” Miyata observed, “and I could have told you all of that. You seem to keep forgetting that I have been here before!”
Herring looked at the mud-spattered officer and finally nodded. “Indeed,” he allowed. “You could have told me if I asked. My mistake . . . and my apologies.” He looked at Laumer, Silva, all of them in turn. “My apologies to you all. This is no time to harbor grudges against any but our current enemy. Please tell us what you can, Lieutenant Miyata.”
“Very well. As was apparent, the larger part of the city was at least mostly deserted. That is because it serves as a kind of ‘base housing,’ if you will. All the yard workers, artificers, carpenters—anyone, in fact, with any productive skill—resides there. I suspect a large percentage of upper-level NCOs and junior officers live there as well. Since the various battles raging around the city seem to be everyone’s focus today, it stands to reason that they would be elsewhere.”
“I can see the fighters bein’ all gone,” Isak croaked, still gasping. “There’s, well, a fight. Stands to reason. But where’d all the yard apes go?”
“I get it,” Silva said, snapping his fingers at Isak. “Griks is almost as specialized as you an’ Gilbert, but they can do other stuff too.”
“Right,” Laumer agreed. “They stampeded everybody else off to help prepare the defenses in front of Second Corps! They’d need the low-level Hij to supervise the Uul in doing stuff as simple as digging a trench!”
“I can do other stuff,” Isak grumbled. “I’m here, ain’t I?”
“I suspect you are right,” Miyata agreed with Laumer.
“Right or not,” Lawrence said urgently, pointing with his rifle, “they didn’t take all the Griks a’ay.”
They looked and saw a crested head peering at them over the wall, just before it disappeared.
“Let’s go!” Silva urged. “Bigwigs or not, armed or not, all Grik got claws an’ teeth! Over the damn wall as fast as you can!”
Lawrence vaulted to the top and helped Silva scrabble up behind him. Standing on the wide, flat top, Dennis saw the Grik racing away—past a lot of other Grik. “Uh-oh,” he murmured, raising his Thompson. “Hurry it up! Get your ass up here, Arnie, an’ cover us with that BAR!” Horn gained the top of the slippery wall, his eyes widening at the number of Grik they were about to wade through. Again, these were obviously not warriors, but there were a lot of them. Silva reslung his Thompson, and he and Lawrence, then a couple of the ’Cat Marines, started practically pitching their comrades over to the other side. Through the apparently panicked mass, Horn saw a column—a column—of about a dozen Grik warriors shoving its way in their direction. With a grim expression, he racked the bolt back on the BAR and very professionally hosed the small force to extinction. The rest of the Grik around it broke into a panicked rush in all directions.
“Goddamn, Arnie!” Silva yelled, working his jaw to pop his ears.
“Goddamn, Arnie!” Petey squealed, fluffing his gliding membrane and hunkering back down. He’d very nearly launched himself. “Why don’t you just toot a bugle an’ say, ‘We’re here!’” Silva demanded.
“As some big idiot destroyerman once told me, sometimes it’s time to quit p-ssyfooting around and get on with the killing!” Horn retorted.
“Idiot’s right,” Pam snapped as Silva handed her over last.
“Enough!” Irvin Laumer decreed in a new tone that brooked no argument, and it would occur to some later that it must have been then that the young former submariner more or less officially took command of “Silva’s” mission. “This isn’t a game. Get down from there,” he instructed Silva, Horn, and Lawrence, who were the last ones on the wall. When they complied, he nodded forward, toward the palace. “We’ll run for it. Shoot what you have to, but we must reach the entrance before they have a chance to fortify it!”
“Right.” Silva nodded, accepting Laumer’s authority as a matter of course. “Me, Arnie . . .” He paused. “And Pam, with the automatic weapons, will take point. The rest o’ you lugs keep the bastards off us on the flanks. They might jump at us outa any o’ these alleyways.” This new part of the city was clearly more geometrical. There were nods, and Silva looked at Irvin. “Whenever you say, Mr. Laumer.”
There wasn’t that much shooting as they practically sprinted the remaining half mile to the palace. A few Grik lunged at them, but the vast majority only wanted to get out of their way. These they left alone, conserving ammunition. It was a little disconcerting. They’d never seen so many “civilian” Grik before, and it was stunning how little fight they had in them.
“What a buncha pansies!” Silva panted, still having trouble with the heavy, wretched air. Three Grik had nearly fallen over themselves trying to clear his path when he menaced them with the Thompson. Its barrel was still smoking after a long burst he fired down a congested alley where another column of warriors was struggling to get at them. Those that followed fired into the writhing mass as well, the heavy booming of their rifles much louder than the stutter of the Thompson.
“Pansies!” Petey cawed. “Pansies! Ack! Goddamn!”
A swarm of musket balls from Grik matchlocks, like barely subsonic bumblebees, thrummed around them, and they ducked and flinched. “That group at the base of the palace steps seems a little more determined,” Laumer warned, pointing at around thirty Grik deploying to block them. “Not to mention competent, to keep its weapons working in this damp.”
“Yeah,” Horn replied. “Let’s get behind something to think this through.”
“The hell with that,” Silva roared, charging ahead. “At ’em while they’re loadin’!” Lawrence and Pam raced after him, and the rest, faced with both the fact and the logic of what Silva did, followed with a shout, and chittering Lemurian yells. Silva’s Thompson blatted, and Pam’s Blitzer Bug burped short bursts, spraying helpless, frightened Grik, caught in the process of loading their long, fishtailed weapons. Many quickly sprawled in bloody heaps on the narrow steps. Others continued loading with half-panicked fingers and were cut down by Horn’s BAR. Lemurian rifles roared at the rest with white smoke and stabbing slashes of orange fire. Maybe half a dozen Grik dropped their weapons and bolted, but the rest drew their curved swords and charged. Laumer blasted one in the face with his shotgun, and it fell past him, its head a shattered wreckage of blood and bone. Pack Rat shot one with his Springfield, then drove it to the ground with his bayonet. The ’Cat Marines met the others with their bayonets as well, and made short work of them. “C’mon!” Laumer cried, sliding another paper and brass shell into his weapon. “Up the stairs! More Grik are gathering at the entrance above!”
“No grenades,” Silva cautioned Horn. “They’ll roll back down at us!”
“Tell somebody that doesn’t already know that!” Horn snapped back. He and Silva were the only ones who had grenades. Under cover of the automatic weapons that sent showers of blood, fuzz, and pulverized stone drifting away from the Grik in the high-arched opening, they puffed and gasped up the remaining forty yards or so to the opening in the north side of the palace. Grik tumbled down around them as they neared, and Dennis did throw a grenade from right below the entrance. It disappeared inside and exploded with a harsh thump, followed by a chorus of wails.
“More!” Laumer yelled.
Dennis and Horn each tossed two more grenades in the opening, and ducked when smoke, debris, and pieces of Grik vomited out around them. “In, in!” Laumer cried. They all rose up and leaped the little stone rail around a broad landing. A ’Cat screamed, dropping his rifle with a clatter, and fell back with a crossbow bolt jutting from his chest. Pam fired blindly into the smoke-choked passageway until her bolt locked back, and Horn and several ’Cats kept up the fire until they were empty as well. Then they listened. Aside from a few moans, there was no sound besides the frantic panting of the attackers themselves.
“Get our guy,” Laumer instructed the Marines, “and his weapon.” A pair hopped back over the rail and dragged the dead ’Cat and his rifle back to the group. For a moment, they all paused, listening and catching their breath. Silva looked back over the city and the harbor, and was stunned by the view. Walker was under her own rainsquall now, and was barely visible in the distance beyond the smoldering Grik cruiser. Bright flashes in the rain encouraged them that she was still in the fight. To the east-northeast, the battle continued to rage in front of II Corps, but all they could see was the Grik rear; a mass of confusing motion. Beyond the smoke of battle, most of which had to be Safir’s, they couldn’t see much of her force either. Silva grunted with satisfaction to see that the me-naak mounted cavalry had finally reached shore and assembled directly east, just to the left of the Allied infantry. The Grik didn’t seem to have noticed it yet.
“We’ve got to leave some guys here,” Laumer wheezed. “Enough to keep the Grik off our ass if any try to follow us in.”
“How many?” Herring asked.
“We can’t afford to leave too many, but a few have to stay.”
Herring nodded. “I’ll stay. Leave me . . . Gunny Horn, a few Marines, and half the grenades.”
“We’re gonna need Arnie in there,” Silva said, nodding at the interior of the palace. “He’s a good bayonet man, and he won’t need his BAR. You take it. Take Isak too. He ain’t good for nothin’ outside a fireroom.”
“Now wait just a damn minute!” Horn objected, holding his BAR close.
“Yah!” Isak protested.
“Hand it over, Gunny,” Laumer ordered. “We’ll have the Thompson and the Blitzer. The BAR’s better for long range, and Herring’ll need it.”
Frowning, Horn handed over his bag of grenades and exchanged the BAR for Herring’s Springfield. “You know how to shoot that thing, sir?” he demanded.
Herring nodded. “It’s been a while,” he admitted, “but I remember how.”
Isak Reuben stared sullenly around, then nervously cleared his throat. “Herring ain’t gettin’ me neither,” he stated. “I’m on my own hook here, an’ by God, fer once, I’m gonna fight this war the way I want! Ever’body else gets to.” He shook his head, his skinny chest still heaving from unaccustomed exertion. “I’m goin’ in there, fer me, an’ Gilbert, an’ Tabby—an’ all the other snipes that always got to do their fightin’ blind, in the hot, dark, engineerin’ spaces. I’m goin’ for all them who the only glimpse they ever get o’ the enemy is one o’ their shells er cannonballs shootin’ holes in our goddamn hulls!” He fumbled at his side, then drew the ’03 Springfield bayonet and shakily affixed it to the muzzle of his Krag. “I’m . . . I’m goin’ in there,” he repeated determinedly.
Silva just grinned. “You’re gonna be a Grik turd, Isak. This time tomorrow!”
“Gonna be a turd!” Petey confirmed.
“You’re already a turd, Dennis!” Pam scolded. “Leave ’im alone. You always get to fight the way you want. It’s my turn too!” She looked at Herring. “We’ll try to get our wounded back here to you before, you know, we get in too deep.” Herring frowned, but nodded his head. “Five Marines, then?” he asked Laumer.
“I’ll stay too,” Pack Rat almost sighed, pushing more .30-06 shells into his magazine. “My feet hurt, an’ I got this Springfield. Might come in handy out here.”
They heard a commotion in the passageway behind them, gurgling cries and the clatter of equipment, and Laumer nodded toward it. “More coming,” he said. “Let’s go meet ’em!”