CHAPTER 36
“Pour it in!” Risa-Sab-At shouted, pacing behind a platoon of Impies deployed in the eastern corridor off the anteroom to the various divergent passageways. She was somewhat surprised that “her” Impies seemed so poised in this confined space, in their first fight against the Grik, but they were loading and firing their breechloaders mechanically and well. The ordeal of the trek across Mada-gaas-car had clearly hardened them to the visceral shock that staggered so many, human or Lemurian, when they faced the Grik for the very first time. “Cut ’em down!” she continued, her voice as calm as she could keep it. There were suddenly a lot of Grik in front of her, charging in without regard for themselves. They might be fighting the “same old way” in a sense, but these weren’t the “same old Grik.” Something had possessed them of an unusual desperation. She looked back at Chack, standing in the anteroom while guiding more troops to the corridors that seemed to need them most, as they charged through the entrance. Courtney was beside him, gazing at the walls and ceiling in rapt fascination, as if oblivious to the fight around him.
Something roared beyond the Grik, something big—and definitely not Grik. Risa felt a chill in her spine. The Grik surged forward and slammed into her narrow front, impaling themselves on bayonets that stabbed remorselessly into their bodies, their eyes, their throats. “What was that?” she shouted back at Courtney. He blinked at her. “I haven’t the faintest idea, my dear. Something new, I expect.” Chack was looking at the fighting in the corridors, trying to gauge which ones seemed to carry the roar best. It was impossible. He did notice that all the Grik suddenly fought even harder, though it was hard to tell whether it was to kill more of his troops or to get away from whatever had roared. They had that look in their eyes he had seen before, the one that preceded panic, or “Grik Rout,” as Courtney called it, but they weren’t trying to run away.
“Something’s coming,” he said to Bradford. “Something they’re afraid of!”
“So it would seem!”
The Grik in front of Risa surged maniacally, utterly wild-eyed now, and those behind them began to scream.
“Here!” she cried. “This corridor here!” Chack redirected a crew of three ’Cats carrying a rectangular crate through the entrance. There were wheels on it, but they’d been useless on the steps outside, and for most of the trip for that matter, and they’d grown used to carrying it. Now they slammed it down and opened the lid. Risa felt uneasy as they worked, preparing the contraption. She’d been born a wing runner on Salissa, and fire weapons of any sort inspired a special disapproval in her. She didn’t know what was coming, but being close to one of the “flame throwers” when it was operated frightened her almost as badly. One of the “firecats” unrolled a hose and attached it to a nozzle equipped with a handle and a trigger mechanism. The trigger would spin a roller against a flint inside, like the Zippo lighters she’d seen. The other two ’Cats erected a pump handle atop the crate that contained a bottle of fuel. They’d pressurize the air in the tank, and that would force the fuel down the hose and out, once the one with the nozzle opened a valve. The valve was particularly important, she knew, because it also—theoretically—kept burning fuel from running back up the hose to the bottle and burning everyone around it alive.
The Grik were being slaughtered, but in their panic, they were close to breaking through anyway. “Get that thing up there!” she yelled. “Up to the line! If you light it in the antechamber, you’ll burn us all. Only down the corridor, clear?” The line bulged, and the Grik screams became hysterical. Something was mashing them forward! The firecats shifted the crate, and two of them started pumping vigorously. The ’Cat on the nozzle looked at her and nodded. Judging by his blinking, he wasn’t much more comfortable with his weapon than she was. “Forward!” Risa ordered her troops. “Push them back, kill them back! When I blow my whistle, break to the rear as fast as you can if you don’t want to burn!” Those in her squad bellowed with rage and determination, physically heaving the Grik back up the passageway and killing as they went. They couldn’t keep it up, but she hoped they wouldn’t have to. They’d never practiced anything remotely like this, and she sure hoped it would work. She fingered the whistle around her neck and glanced back at her brother, Chack. He took a last look at the other squads, then nodded.
Her whistle trilled loudly. Some Grik recoiled from the unexpected sound, but most were too far gone with terror to even notice. The wall of bodies her troops had amassed was sufficient to create a slight delay, however, and those in the blocking force streamed past her, almost falling over themselves to get out of the way. The Grik were close on their heels, and so was . . . something else.
“Let ’em have it!” Risa cried, and stumbled back herself to join the line re-forming behind the flamethrower.
The firecat on the nozzle opened his valve, and fuel spurted at the charging Grik. He quickly pulled the trigger in the handle, and the stream of fuel ignited with a smoky bark. As long as the pumpers kept up the pressure, the flames would stay a few inches from the nozzle and shouldn’t be able to race back up the hose after he closed the valve. That was how it usually worked. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the fuel in the sprayer to burn itself out. The effect on the target was not so benign. The fuel-drenched Grik squealed horribly when the flames found them, and the burning stream wilted the rest like moths. Black smoke gushed out of the passageway and swirled in the high ceiling of the antechamber before belching out the entrance in a boiling rush.
Risa crouched low to avoid the bitter smoke and stared at the ghastly sight of burning, convulsing Grik—then her sickened heart quickened when she saw what was beyond them. She caught only a glimpse of huge flame-lit, yellow-toothed jaws closing on squalling Grik, and horns protruding from an armored shield. There was an impression of comparatively tiny eyes rotating independently to glare brightly at her before the spattering river of fire touched the thing and it went amok.
“Open fire!” Risa trilled.
A ragged volley from the shorter Allin-Silvas favored by the Raiders slashed at the monster through the flames as it rolled and squealed in the passageway. Blitzer Bugs joined the fusillade and pattered the burning head with lighter bullets. The monster lunged, its fiery jaws snapping, but the firecat hosed it again. The smell of burning meat joined the charred canvas, sun-baked-toad stench of cooking Grik. The thing bashed its head against the walls in spastic fury, then exploded down the passageway, away from its tormentors.
“Cease firing!” Risa coughed. “Cease firing!” She looked at the firecats with a new appreciation. “Do shut that thing off before we choke, if you please!”
Wide-eyed and shaking, the Lemurian on the sprayer blinked gratefully and closed his valve. The firing down the other corridors eased a bit as the Grik guarding them began to melt away, or simply bolt back the way they came.
“After them!” Chack ordered. He started to warn them to have a care, remembering how dangerously trapped Grik fought, but realized that, though there were times for “careful” attacks, this wasn’t one of them. “After them!” he repeated. “Are you ready, Mr. Braad-furd?” he asked, gesturing at Courtney’s Krag with his own as his Raiders streamed down the passageways.
“Not entirely,” Courtney confessed. “Not as ready as those other fellows, at least. But sufficiently so to tag along with you in a relatively militant fashion, as long as nothing too terribly strenuous is required.” He grinned. “And I wouldn’t miss it for all the world!”
* * *
Dennis Silva emptied his last Thompson magazine as he and Gunny Horn plowed their way up the stairway to the next level in the palace. Grik fell away, to the side and underfoot, under the hammering bullets—but then the bolt locked back and Dennis used the heavy Thompson as a club. Tommy guns are hungry boogers, he lamented between mighty swings that cracked arms and crushed heads. But Arnie Horn really is an artist with a bayonet, he reflected admiringly, seeing his old friend parry and thrust almost at will. Might even be as good as Pete Alden. “Shit!” he roared, taking another slash across his chest—with claws, damn it—and he battered his attacker’s head to paste. Gotta stay on my toes, he scolded himself. These Grik’re better in a brawl than most. He’d realized they were different when they first ran into them, milling a little awkwardly at the base of the stairs. None were dressed or equipped just alike, as the palace guards had been. On the other hand, though they seemed to be far more capable warriors, individually, they apparently couldn’t fight together very well. A notion struck him. “I bet these are them ‘gladiator Griks’ the Jap was talkin’ about,” he wheezed, slamming the Thompson into a toothy jaw and shattering it. The Grik dropped, gurgling on gushing blood, but raked its claws down his side as it fell. “Goddamn it!” Silva roared. “They got me again!” He viciously crushed the staring eyes with the butt of his gun.
“Goddamn it!” Petey whimpered, his voice muffled by Silva’s neck.
Lawrence battered a Grik away with his rifle, then shot it—and stabbed it for good measure. The little Sa’aaran hadn’t said much at all from the start, but he’d been instinctively guarding Silva’s blind left side, since the fighting got close. His orangish fur was clotted with blood and he’d been cut a few times, but he was just as lethal as always.
Irvin Laumer blasted a final wavering Grik with his shotgun, then drove his own bayonet past a still-slashing sword into its heaving chest. They’d reached the landing and there were still a lot of Grik, but they’d suddenly pulled back for a moment, as if actually appraising opponents that had fought their way past so many like themselves. “I think you’re right,” Laumer gasped back, blinking and trying to wipe blood out of his eyes with bloody fingers. He squinted in the gloom. “They all have crests so they’re adults, but none seem to be in charge! Each one is thinking for himself, wondering how he will kill us, not how they will,” he added.
“Gonna hafta do better than they done so far,” Isak shouted from the steps behind. He and the two remaining Marines were guarding the rear. They’d lost the rest of their Lemurians in the gang fight below, but Isak was satisfied these last two were the best of the lot. “Hewy an’ Dewy here is a match for the rest o’ these Griks by theirselves.”
“That ain’t our names!” one of the ’Cat Marines snapped indignantly.
“I don’t care,” Isak sneered back, opening the loading gate of his Krag and dropping three cartridges into the magazine. “I swear. Give a fella a kind word, an’ all he does is bitch. My days o’ heapin’ praise on undeservin’ fuzzballs is through!”
“Shut up, Isak. By rights, you shoulda been ate already,” Dennis said, watching the warriors before them move and shift, brandishing swords, axes, spears, but no muskets or crossbows. “You know, I figger these critters are the skimmed-off cream—the more experienced fighters that know they gotta defend their lizardy queen, but they let the younger rascals whittle us down a little first.” He shrugged. “That’s what I woulda done.”
“Yeah,” Horn agreed resignedly, breathing hard. “So now what? I bet there’s a hundred of ’em, and we’re about outa ammo.”
“We kill ’em, o’ course! Look, this level has a whole different layout again, only one long corridor, spirallin’ clockwise up.”
“Silva’s right,” Laumer said. “We can’t wait for relief because there are a lot of Grik still behind us, and I doubt our hosts here will allow it in any case. We can’t go around them. . . .”
“So we gotta go through the sons o’ bitches, as Chief Gray once so delicately said, an keep goin’ all the way to the twisty top o’ this joint, where I bet we’ll find their sequesteral mother. I b’lieve I’d like to give her a stern talkin’ to,” Dennis finished. Regretfully, he let the empty Thompson slip to the damp stones and pulled his Colt out of its holster. “Why don’t we play pistols an’ cutlasses—or bayonets if you’d rather.” He grinned at Horn. “A hundred of ’em,” he mocked. “There you go again, overestimatin’ the odds—just like usual!” Casually, Dennis retrieved the last two grenades from his pouch. “All bunched up like that, I bet there ain’t fifty or sixty we’ll actually hafta fight!” He handed one grenade to Horn and tossed the other to Irvin. “You wanna do the honors, Mr. Laumer?” he asked, drawing his cutlass. “It appears them gladiator Griks is just waitin’ for somebody to say ‘when.’”
Irvin Laumer looked at his comrades and smiled, realizing he’d been waiting for something like this ever since he came to this world: an opportunity to stand and fight with Silva—or someone like him—who’d been in the thick of it from the start. He didn’t expect to survive, but that didn’t really matter anymore. He’d finally do his part with “the best of them,” and he’d be remembered for it. Maybe Silva guessed what was on his mind, because the big man’s grin faded a little. “Fight careful, all of you, ’cause there is a lot of ’em an’ we’re here to do a job, not be hee-roes.” His grin returned. “Live hee-roes have a lot more fun than dead ones, an’ that’s a fact!”
Irvin nodded, pulling the pin from the grenade. With a final glance at his little squad, he threw it past the closest Grik and into the press in the corridor beyond. “When!” he shouted. Horn’s grenade followed closely behind, and Silva, Horn, Laumer, Lawrence, Isak, and two Lemurian Marines charged forward behind a flurry of pistol shots just as the grenades went off. The pistols were quickly emptied, and Silva, Horn, and Lawrence formed the battering ram at the front as they pushed the startled Grik out of the landing chamber and into the narrow corridor. Silva stuffed his pistol in his belt and drew his ’03 Springfield bayonet with his left hand to use as a second, shorter cutlass. His two blades wove a savage tapestry of death before him. Lawrence stabbed with his bayonet, pushing his squalling victims back to crowd others behind them until he could pull his weapon clear and stab again. Horn did much the same, shouting with every thrust, his dark bearded face streaked with sweat that glistened in the yellow lamplight. Ferocious as their attack was, Laumer, Isak, and the two Marines did most of the killing. They were free to reload their weapons and fire past their friends with a relatively careful aim. Their muzzle blasts were painful for those in front—at first—but were quickly easy to ignore.
On they fought, endlessly it seemed, stabbing, hacking, slashing, shooting, climbing over corpses that sometimes came to life and had to be killed again. All of them were wounded, even Petey, who’d finally taken all he could stand and bolted for the rear, only to land on a dying Grik that feebly slashed him with its claws. He hissed and bit his assailant, then scampered and coasted away down the corridor screeching, “Shit! Shit! Shit!” There was firing behind them now; they could hear it, echoing up the passageway from the now-distant stairs, but there was no telling how long it might be before help arrived, or how many Grik might arrive first, fleeing from their friends. All they could do was keep fighting, keep moving forward.
Lawrence’s bayonet got jammed. Unable to pull it clear, he let his rifle go and drew his cutlass. He didn’t have the strength of his bigger adversaries, but made up for it with a more refined technique he’d learned in the Empire. He remained at a disadvantage, however, particularly against spears, and started taking more wounds. None were serious, but they became debilitating, and Laumer replaced him with one of the Marines. Horn’s rifle lost its bayonet when the locking catch in the grip broke. He immediately reversed it and drove the Grik with savage butt strokes until the Springfield stock shattered completely. “Give me your weapon!” he shouted behind at the other ’Cat, but before he could take the rifle, a Grik spear pierced his side.
“Ah!” he grunted, and battered the Grik that stabbed him with his rifle barrel before slinging it at another. Then he pulled the spear from his side and drove it into a Grik trying to snake its sword past Silva’s slashing cutlass. “Wow,” he said, his eyes going wide, and he sank to his knees atop a Grik corpse.
“You okay, Arnie?” Silva hollered aside, his breath coming in heaving gasps.
“Swell. Just a little woozy all of a sudden.”
Irvin fired past him until his slide locked, then grabbed him under the arms and pulled him back as Isak took his place. Isak was immediately, effortlessly slammed aside by a very large Grik. The last Marine skewered it and hurled it past the heap of bodies Silva had been building in the pause.
“I can do it, Dewy, damn yer stripy tail!” Isak snarled through broken lips.
“I ain’t Hewy,” the ’Cat replied with a blink of humor. “The other one ain’t Dewy!”
“I don’t give a shit which one you ain’t!” Isak retorted, gesturing with his Krag. “Goddamn it, we’re almost through ’em!”
It was true, or so it seemed. They’d advanced a lot farther up the spiraling passage than they’d realized, distracted by the all-consuming necessity of fighting and killing and surviving, and only a few live Grik now blocked their way. These were fresh, however, and refused to budge, while Irvin’s party was all injured and exhausted beyond endurance. Even Silva’s cutlass and bayonet were slow and clumsy now, and the fact that he wasn’t yelling, swearing, or making any sound at all other than gasping for air was proof that he was spent. “Hewy” went down, an axe finding him between the neck and shoulder, and Isak got his wish. He returned to Silva’s side. Lawrence tried to pick up the fallen Marine’s rifle, but for some reason he couldn’t seem to hold it. Irvin took it and stabbed past Silva, driving the bayonet into the belly of a Grik that screamed and pulled itself clear. Blood and entrails burst through the gash, and Isak stabbed it again.
“Can’t . . . you . . . just . . . shoot . . . these . . . last’uns?” Silva managed, his chest heaving, as he clumsily blocked a hacking sword with his cutlass and thrust the ’03 bayonet through his attacker’s throat.
“I’m empty!” Laumer yelled in desperation.
“Take . . . mine!”
Laumer didn’t understand. Then he realized that Silva still had magazines for his 1911 on his belt! He’d been too busy fighting to reload his pistol. Isak bayoneted another Grik, hooting with relieved excitement, but a bong echoed in the hall and “Dewy” fell, his helmet dished by an axe. There was no telling if he was alive or not, but he was out. Silva brought his notched cutlass down across the back of the axe-wielder’s neck, but shuddered when a Grik in front of him scored with a spear. He knocked it away, but then just stood there, swaying a little. Suddenly, there were only three Grik left, and they backed away, obviously stunned that so small a group could fight its way through so many. They were born fighters, and not about to quit, but clearly recognized it was time to reevaluate things. The one in the middle seemed to realize its most dangerous prey was weakening, however, and took a step forward, crouching to spring.
Irvin was already fumbling at Silva’s pouches for his magazines, but he’d never get one out in time. “Aw hell,” Dennis grunted, pulling Linus Truelove’s ornate flintlock pistol from his belt. Shakily, he pointed it at the Grik. The thing’s eyes narrowed in realization and it leaped, but with a clack-boom! Silva shot it dead. “Always liked to save that one for somethin’ . . . you know, kinda weird. But oh well,” he said, tossing the smoking pistol on a corpse and bending over to put his hands on his knees. “Ain’t you got any bullets left, Isak?”
“Why, maybe I do.”
“Then you better shoot those other two before they eat your stupid head . . . ’cause I sure can’t stop ’em.”
Stunned by such an admission, Isak opened his loading gate and dropped his last five rounds in the magazine. The two remaining Grik charged.
Gunny Horn’s pistol barked four times, and both Grik sprawled at Isak’s feet. With trembling fingers, Isak finished chambering a round and looked at the China Marine, leaning against the wall, his Baalkpan Arsenal 1911 supported by both hands. Slowly, Horn slid to the floor, looking at the Colt copy. “Got so busy, I forgot I even had this thing till you told Mr. Laumer to take your magazines,” he said. His voice was weak and strained. “Are you going to die, Dennis?” he demanded.
Silva managed to straighten, then turned to face his friend. It was the first anyone had seen of his front since they started up the passageway, and he was soaked with blood from his short hair to his shoes. His T-shirt and sodden trousers were crisscrossed with diagonal tears, and there were a fair number of punctures as well. Everyone had seen him weakening, but now they knew it wasn’t just from fatigue. It was impossible to say whether he’d taken any mortal wounds, but he had so many, he was obviously bleeding to death.
“My God,” Laumer said, and caught Dennis before he dropped.
“Shit!” Isak croaked.
“I ain’t gonna die, you idiot gyrene,” Dennis snapped, sagging in Laumer’s arms, “so don’t go makin’ plans for swipin’ my Doom Stomper!” He looked at Irvin. “But I’m sorry. I hate to admit it, but maybe I have had enough fun for one day. You mind carryin’ the ball from here, Mr. Laumer?”
“No . . . no.”
Silva nodded. “Shift me over by Horn, if you will, then the rest of you go ahead on. We’ll watch yer backs. We both got pistols, an’ Horn’s magazines.”
Lawrence helped Laumer move the big man over to the wall as best he could, and crouched beside his friend. “I’ll stay too.”
Dennis shook his head. “Nope. Mr. Laumer might need you, an’ we’ll be fine. We got Petey, after all.” Lawrence hiss-snorted indignant frustration and spun away. Dennis chuckled, fumbling the magazine Horn handed him into his pistol. He dropped the slide, chambering a round, and then glared at Isak. “You take care o’ Mr. Laumer, you rat-faced little louse!” His voice softened. “He’s a good ’un.”
“But who’s gonna take care o’ me?” Isak demanded, almost whining. Silva blinked. “Who cares? We already know you’re gonna get ate! Live with it.”
Awkwardly, Irvin patted Silva’s shoulder, and the big man winced. “We have to go. We’ll come back as soon as we can . . . or the Raiders ought to be along soon. They’ll have rescued Surgeon Cross, and she’ll get you patched up. . . .”
“Sure.”
Irvin turned to Isak and Lawrence. “Come on,” he said.
Their footsteps echoed up the passageway, fading in the gloom, and Silva looked around. He was having trouble focusing, but when his eyes passed over the ’Cat Marine who wasn’t Dewy—he smirked—he was pretty sure he saw him breathing. Good. He settled back, taking his blood-soaked tobacco pouch out of his pocket. For some reason, he couldn’t seem to make his fingers fish out a wad of the sweetened leaves, however, and he glanced down at himself. “I’m a mess,” he muttered, a little surprised. He didn’t really hurt that much, but he’d never felt so weak in his life. He turned to look at the man beside him. “You ain’t gonna die, are you, Arnie?” he asked, but Gunny Horn appeared asleep and didn’t reply. “Better not,” Dennis warned, and sighed. “Few enough fellas left to talk with about the old days as it is.” He gazed at the tobacco pouch again, now lying in his lap. “I’d kill,” he said with a smirk, “even more stuff, for a cold San Miguel right now.” His voice was barely audible.
Hesitantly, painfully, Petey crept out of the darkness, sniffing and cringing at the growing sound of battle behind them. Focusing on Dennis, he hop-sprinted into his lap. The man usually pretended not to notice him, but this time there was no reaction at all. Staring up with wide, searching eyes, he clawed his way higher, closer to the slack-jawed face.
“Si-vaa?” Petey hissed insistently.
* * *
Irvin Laumer, Isak Reuben, and Lawrence had no doubts when they finally reached the entrance leading to the chambers of the Celestial Mother herself. There’d been no other openings in the passageway at all, and they’d reached the end of the line. They advanced cautiously toward this slightly larger, considerably more ornate archway, weapons ready, watchful for guards, but there were none that they could see. Lawrence still couldn’t manage a rifle—his right arm wasn’t working right—but he held a cutlass in his left hand, cocked to slash, and he instinctively took the lead.
“Easy,” Irvin whispered, holding his pistol up. “I’ll go first.” His voice seemed unnaturally loud. “She’s got to have some guards, if she’s in there,” he explained.
“She’s in there,” Lawrence confirmed. “I think there’s other . . . phee-males too. I s’ell—taste? Taste their hot ’reath—lung air?” He shook his head in frustration.
“Eww!” Isak hissed. “Then they must be the mouth-fartin’est critters that ever was!”
“Taste . . . pharts too,” Lawrence confirmed.
“Eww!”
“Come on,” Irvin urged, stepping through the arch. The others followed, their wide eyes tensely seeking threats in the gloom.
“Some kinda waitin’ room,” Isak guessed, pointing his Krag in the dark corners of the chamber. There were a couple of the saddlelike “chairs” that only Grik could love, but light leaked around a thick drapery at the far end of the room. Isak reached for it with the bayonet on the end of his rifle as they neared it.
“Careful,” Irvin hissed, his pistol trembling slightly.
“The hell with that, they gotta know we’re here.” Isak gulped, and slashed the drapery aside.
Beyond was another chamber, considerably larger, filled with what looked like sunlight! For an instant, all the trio could do was blink, as their eyes adjusted, but then they saw at last what they’d come all this way to find. Draped across another one of the bizarre chairs, staring intently at them with large, yellow eyes, was the biggest, most ridiculously obese example of the Grik species anyone had ever seen. Its furry plumage was bright and coppery in the light glaring down from an opening in the ceiling, and it seemed to almost flash with fire as it shifted slightly and rolls of fat moved beneath its skin. Uselessly long, but meticulously sculpted claws flickered on its fingers as it clasped its hands in front of it. With a surprisingly small voice for such a monstrous creature, it spoke.
“What the hell?” Isak demanded nervously. “You picked up some o’ that Grik gibberish, didn’t you, Larry?”
Lawrence nodded, his crest high and tail stiff, eyes narrowed in concentration. He’d learned quite a bit, in fact, working with the “tame” Grik that went along on the expedition to northern Borno.
“What did it say?” Laumer asked.
“It said to enter and . . . kneel, I think . . . and it’d hear us.”
“My skinny ass!” Isak snarled. “Tell it to flop down offa that saddle an’ beg us not to blow its fat head off!”
Lawrence snatched his gaze from the monster and looked at Laumer. “She’s not going to do that.” He looked at Isak. “Don’t you get it? That’s her. That’s really her! She knows the ’attle outside is lost, ’ut thinks us are just other hunters, here to serph her!”
“Bullshit!” Isak spat. “Let’s kill her!”
“Us really need to kill her,” Lawrence fervently agreed. Something about this confrontation had him more worried than he’d been at any time during the fight to get here.
“But if we could take her alive, we might win the whole war, here and now!” Irvin insisted, stepping forward into the chamber.
“No!” Lawrence cried, leaping after him, claws outstretched.
Irvin whipped his head toward Lawrence, stunned, but saw a massive Grik, this one all muscle, lunging toward him from the right, beyond the entrance. His pistol came up just as Lawrence vaulted past him—at another giant guard, he supposed with relief—and he started shooting the first one. His pistol barked seven times fast, almost as quick as full-auto fire, and the massive Grik—he noticed it had no crest—slammed into him, trying to bury him under its dying weight. He didn’t go down, because something had him by the left arm. He saw Lawrence on the floor near the Celestial Mother, painfully trying to rise, and realized he must’ve been batted away by the far more powerful Grik—that now had him.
“Mr. Laumer!” Isak wailed, lunging past him with his bayonet, just as a wickedly barbed spearpoint erupted from Irvin Laumer’s chest. The Grik dropped the dying submariner to deal with Isak—but nothing could have dealt with the berserk little fireman just then. Screeching and stabbing with the long blade on the end of his rifle, as fast and maniacally as a piston released from a blown jug, Isak never gave the Grik the slightest chance. Finally burying the blade all the way to the guard, he drove the bloody monster back and down, then fired the Krag for good measure. Twisting the bayonet clear, he stepped back in time to see Irvin Laumer’s eyes, staring up at him, glaze into lifelessness.
“Oh, you sneakin’, fuzzy ol’ toad!” he whispered, looking back up at the monster on the throne. Its expression hadn’t changed at all. Its mouth moved and it spoke again. Without even asking Larry what it said, Isak chambered another round and fired.
The 220-grain cupronickel-jacketed Frankford Arsenal ball wouldn’t have much irritated the Celestial Mother if it had struck her anywhere else; her fat was so thick, it probably wouldn’t have even reached muscle. Blowing through her curious left eye and exploding into her brain, however, it sent her into a flailing mass of mindless flesh. With a squeaky roar and mounting rage, Isak Reuben charged. “When the hell’s ever-body gonna learn, sometimes you just gotta kill shit!” he screamed, stabbing at the convulsing, gelatinous corpse with his bayonet again and again until he managed to miss it entirely. He was blinded by the tears filling his eyes and gushing down his cheeks and the bayonet stuck in the wooden frame of the throne. “Goddamn it!” he shrieked, leaving the Krag swaying, and yanking out his cutlass.
“No!” Lawrence snapped, grabbing his arm. “No!” he repeated when Isak struggled. “Us still use her. You don’t hack her too ’uch! Co’ander Lau’er ’anted to use her,” he insisted more gently. “Us could still can!”