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  “My uneasiness stems from this,” Niwa cautioned. “Look at the craftsmanship of that weapon. Look how well it fits together. Consider the skill, the industry required to make such things in large numbers! Consider the enemy aircraft—and the larger ones we’ve now seen that supply the force entrenched around the lake. Think of the better bombs, ships, guns—all these new things—then hear what I say.” Niwa looked hard at his Grik friend. “The Americans—the Lemurians—are better at war than we! We improve, but not as fast as they improve their weapons to kill us.” He pointed again at the rifle. “Weapons such as that, and what must quickly follow, mean they will likely change tactics—again!—very soon. Already they kill us from trenches we cannot approach. None of your . . . our warriors have trained for that! I submit, you cannot imagine how quickly our enemies will soon be killing us—far quicker than we can possibly replace the slain, I promise.” He nodded once more at the weapon. “Please take no offense, my friend. But can you even operate that?”

  Surprised, Halik looked at the captured rifle. Curious, he picked it up. He managed to cock the hammer and with a little fumbling got the breech to flip open. He looked at Niwa triumphantly.

  “Now load it,” Niwa said, holding out a cartridge.

  Halik reached to take it—and dropped it on the mushy, earthen floor. With a snort, he tried to pick it up, but his claws would find no purchase. He finally managed to snag it and hold it up. But it was clear it would take some doing to insert it in the weapon. He glanced at Niwa, pupils narrowing.

  “You can,” Niwa said, “but not efficiently. Your lower-class Hij, the makers of delicate things, remove their claws to perform their tasks. Remove them. Just cutting them will not do—and still the best machines they make are crude, clunky things. Again, I mean no offense. Grik are born hunters; the finest predators in the world, no doubt. But to make anything like the weapons the Americans and their allies will soon bring to war will take a whole new level of understanding and craftsmanship.” He pointed at the cartridge. “That can be made, but to even prepare to make them in numbers will take time—and then we will have to train troops to use them, find a way to shape their claws so they can handle them with ease. You can’t just cut them off. How long would even the new army stand once they ran out of ammunition if they didn’t even have claws? More time lost.”

  “We will make do!” Halik shot back. “Our weapons may be crude, but the projectiles are large enough for a proper warrior to hold—and they inflict terrific wounds! They work, and we will soon have them in countless numbers—along with warriors to wield them!”

  “And they will die,” Niwa said relentlessly, “in countless numbers.”

  Halik swished his plumed tail, and his crest stood up. “Are you saying . . . we will lose?” he asked softly.

  “No. I’m saying only that time is not on our side. You, First General Esshk, even Regent-Consort”—he almost sneered—“General of the Sea Kurokawa have believed all we need is time for the new army of better warriors to mature, and we’ll sweep the enemy away. I believe the enemy will sweep those better warriors away with better weapons by the time they are ready.” He scowled. “Kurokawa has not ordered the general assault on the perimeter you plead for simply because he does not think it necessary. He thinks he buys time. As long as this . . .” Niwa scowled deeper and sighed. “The few prisoners that survived long enough to be questioned called our opponent General Alden. . . .” He looked away from Halik, wishing again he could’ve saved at least a few of those prisoners, but the Grik had no concept of quarter. Saving any even long enough to question had been an achievement. It had been Niwa’s first look at the enemy as people, as warriors, and he’d admired their courage. None had surrendered; they’d been overwhelmed. He’d been struck by the irony that he could not only talk with Lemurians in English, but there was also no doubt that he had far more in common with them than the Grik. They were making a monumental fight against a terrible enemy—an enemy that attacked them and that Niwa was aiding. . . . He slashed that thought from his head.

  “As long as this General Alden’s army is trapped, Kurokawa thinks the enemy will concentrate on rescuing it. I agree, but I also think they may succeed if we wait too long!”

  “But our warships control the sea. The enemy has nothing to defeat Lord Kurokawa’s iron monsters at Madras, particularly with the addition of the slower ships that have arrived. Only a trickle of supplies can possibly come.”

  “The enemy had nothing that could defeat Kurokawa’s powerful fleet,” Niwa agreed, “but they will come up with something, I assure you.” He looked strangely at Halik. “Perhaps they already have. Why else have our own supplies become so dear . . . unless they are being intercepted?”

  Halik grunted at the disconcerting possibility. The tricky trails they’d found through the mountains to the west were too treacherous for reliable, large-scale supply from that direction, and the enemy often bombed them in any case. If any supplies were making it through a possible Allied gauntlet around Ceylon, none were reaching Halik’s army from Madras. They’d been reduced to eating their own. That was not unusual or distasteful to Grik; they did it all the time. But it was annoying and wasteful that so much of Halik’s army that made the long trek up from the south, though growing in numbers, could not seem to grow decisively as long as it was forced to consume so much of itself. Halik believed that if only he had sufficient supplies, he could very quickly trample underfoot the all-too-competent enemy he faced.

  Niwa sat on a bench beside the table and steepled his fingers. “Do not forget the other information we gleaned from the prisoners: our enemy has another enemy besides us! These ‘Doms.’ Their efforts have been divided between two distinct fronts. Just imagine what that means. Without that distraction, they might have sent twice what they did against us, and our war—in India at least—would already be lost. As it is, whoever or whatever these Doms are—sadly, I could learn little about them, particularly where they are beyond ‘in the east’—they do us a great service whether they know it or not. Still, the fact that our enemies are fighting two wars at once says much about their industrial capacity and reserves. Unless that other enemy has recently beaten them more soundly than we have, I would expect an increased focus on us.”

  “And yet it may be the reverse,” Halik speculated. “If these Doms even now drive our enemy on another front, he may be hard-pressed to make good his losses, much less intensify his efforts here.”

  “Perhaps,” agreed Niwa, “but that is only a hope—and a double-edged hope at that.”

  “In what way?”

  “Our current enemy is quite enough to satisfy me. I do not relish facing anyone who could defeat him.”

  Halik was silent, contemplative, and Niwa finally took a deep breath.

  “Ultimately, my friend,” Niwa said softly, “between us, whatever plans the enemy has may not be our greatest concern. Do not place too much faith in our new regent, General of the Sea Kurokawa. He has plans of his own that do not include you or me, the Grik, or anyone but himself.” He paused. “He is mad, you know. Do you understand what that means?”

  Halik looked troubled. “Not angry, in the context you use. He is . . . mind sick?”

  “That is close. He should have followed his naval victory with an immediate advance on the enemy, as soon as more ships arrived. Complete victory might have been possible then, but I’m no longer sure that’s what he wants—or that he wants it yet. I know he has a scheme, but I have no idea what it is or what he hopes to achieve.”

  “So . . . he is a traitor to the Celestial Mother?”

  Niwa actually burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. He suddenly sobered when he saw Halik’s crest rise in anger—and when he realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed. “I don’t know if he’s a traitor,” he said at last, “but I know the man, and he’s truly loyal only to himself.”

  Halik
considered. “We should have attacked this Alden immediately also, with everything, before he had a chance to improve his position. Still, without reinforcement and major supply, time is not on his side.” He looked at the rifle once more. “I believe he has few more of those, and his ammunition will be short for everything. I think we will use this time of delay to make him use as much of it as we can.” He looked at Niwa, and his crest flattened. “That, we are already doing, as you know. As you say, we have supply issues of our own and cannot keep an army this size in the field forever in a land so barren of food beasts . . . without feeding upon our own, and doing our enemy’s work for him! General Ugla’s Hatchling Host west of the gap has all the supplies it could want, carried overland from ports in the west. They also have the large creatures of the plains to consume at need. But the gap was to be the principal path of supply for us! Few of the food beasts we gathered in the lowlands remain, and the enemy is actually better off in that regard than we. They discovered many of the kraals and captured a considerable herd.” Halik gazed out at the rain. “So you are right after all, in every way. We simply cannot wait much longer for whatever Regent General of the Sea Kurokawa has in mind.” He paused, considering. “And regarding him, I will think on what you said. We must discuss it again—and discover how we can destroy the enemy entirely before he destroys us.”

  Niwa was silent.

  “Come,” Halik said in an ironic tone, ringing a bell for his attendants. “It is time to demonstrate against the enemy again, to provoke him to use more precious ammunition!” He snorted angrily. “And help us ease our own supply problems once more,” he added with heavy sarcasm. His attendant appeared. “Fetch my armor!” he ordered. “And bring something for General Niwa as well!” He looked at Niwa. “I know we decided not to put ourselves together on the field of battle anymore. We are co-commanders, after all. But this will not be a real battle; merely a harvest of provisions. Still, you might observe something of interest. Would you care to join me?”

  “Of course, General Halik.”

  CHAPTER

  4

  ////// Alden’s Perimeter

  Lake Flynn, West of Madras

  Grik India

  Thunder muttered in the thick night sky, and accompanying strobes of lightning competed with the desultory flashing pulse and rumble of artillery. Brief torrents of rain seemed physically shaken from the trembling, pregnant clouds of sodden air, to bulge the swollen lake and flood its muddy, miserable environs. Around Lake Flynn and the upper reaches of the river that fed it through the high, craggy, Rocky Gap, the remnants of Alden’s Allied Expeditionary Force (AEF) had dug in tighter than a tick.

  A network of defensive trenches, protected by a blanket of the new barbed wire, zigzagged around the perimeter several lines deep in places. The reliable and deadly twelve-pounder “Napoleons”—as General Alden called them—were placed in thoughtfully situated redoubts where they could lay heavy fire support down long sections of the line. The lighter, more numerous six-pounders strengthened the line itself at frequent intervals. Alden’s own beloved 1st Marines, of General Muln-Rolak’s I Corps, formed a mobile reserve with their breech-loading Baalkpan Arsenal “Allin-Silva” conversion rifles that fired a potent.50-80 cartridge. The rest of Rolak’s I Corps held the stopper in the Rocky Gap. Rolak remained a little exposed to a Grik thrust to cut him off from the rest of I Corps and the beefed-up, reinforced remnant of General Queen Safir Maraan’s II Corps in the main west-east-south defensive line, but a grand battery placed in a veritable fortress had bloodily repulsed such attempts so far. True, many of II Corps’s “reinforcements” were actually support troops, auxiliaries, and even sailors, but all were veterans now. The heaps of festering Grik corpses, packed so thick that even the rain couldn’t subdue the stench, lapped against every part of the line and grimly testified to that. General Rolak felt secure.

  Somehow, General Pete Alden, onetime Marine sergeant aboard the lost USS Houston on another, different earth, and now General of the Armies and Marines of the Grand Alliance, had managed to wring order from the chaos of disaster. He—and Keje, Alden supposed—had lost the port city of Madras, and his northern component of the Allied Expeditionary Force had been cut off from most lines of convenient support. In the confusion of that month-old battle, III Corps, under General Faan-Ma-Mar, had slashed its way up from the south against scattered, surprised resistance, and his force was much appreciated, but it had been a costly move. Now Alden’s three savaged corps were as effectively surrounded as Colonel Billy Flynn’s scratch division beyond the Rocky Gap had been, and Flynn’s force had ultimately been all but annihilated. But Pete had more defensible terrain; secure internal lines of communication; and more troops, artillery, and mortars than Flynn enjoyed on his crummy, rocky hill. There was an elasticity of depth, and the Grik had difficulty moving through the dense forest to mass against the formidable defenses he’d established, defenses Flynn never had the time, troops, or equipment to emplace. The lake in the center of the perimeter also meant Pete had a ready “airfield” for almost seventy PB-1B Nancy floatplanes that could provide air support. Perhaps most important, he’d secured most of the baggage intended to support an extended campaign. The AEF was in . . . decent shape.

  For now, Pete Alden reminded himself darkly, checking his water-beaded watch in the lamplight of the CP tent. He was amazed the thing still worked. The case was badly corroded and the wristband had been replaced twice now when the leather rotted off his wrist. For now, he almost sighed. Only forty of his plucky Nancys were actually airworthy, and all had seen a lot of action with limited maintenance. Most came from the shattered carrier Salissa, and had been through a lot before they ever arrived, unable to return to their badly damaged ship. Fuel, spare parts, bombs—everything heavy that took up space aboard the meager but gradually more frequent supply flights was in short supply. All fresh supplies came from Ceylon—still in Allied hands—or via TF Arracca, which lurked offshore, from Andaman Island. It was a vital but rickety logistics train, stretched to the absolute limit.

  The planes and their pilots were just as exhausted as the rest of Pete’s army after months of almost constant combat, and there was no end in sight. Still, in the Lemurians that made up his army, from such diverse places and even cultures, he had the best troops he could want, and a good position to defend. But the swarming—unnervingly more professional—Grik host he faced was too numerous, and frankly too damn good, for Pete to consider any unsupported offensive action, and it galled his soul. Worse, for right or wrong, Pete still thought the whole situation was mostly his fault.

  “It’s almost time,” he told his staff, also waiting in the shelter of the tent. “Anything from the lookouts?”

  “No Gen-er-aal Aal-den,” replied a stocky ’Cat hunched over the wireless receiver, an assistant methodically turning a hand generator.

  “If we can’t fly in this muck, Grik zeppelins sure can’t,” the young, blond Lieutenant Mark Leedom said, nodding at the sky. Leedom had been a torpedoman, but had become one of the hottest pilots they had.

  “But we do fly in it, Lieutenant,” Pete disagreed. “We have to.” He shrugged. “Maybe not combat missions, but without the supply runs, we won’t last long—and we’re losing a lot of planes and pilots just bringing in the beans and bullets.”

  “Stuff wears out,” Leedom pointed out in a low tone. “So do people. At least we’re starting to get stuff up the Tacos River from the coast,” he added. The river had been named for Leedom’s Lemurian backseater, who’d been killed in action.

  “We are,” Alden agreed, “but the Grik’ll figure that out eventually and start sniping at the boats and barges all the way in and out. They’ll line the river with heavy guns—or, God help us, put a floating battery in it.”

  “At least they can’t get one of their baattle-ships upstream,” said the Lemurian General Daanis of General Maraan’s Silver Battalion of her famous “60
0.” He was tall for a ’Cat and had the same black fur as his Aryaalan queen.

  “The water is too shallow, even with this unending rain,” agreed Captain Jis-Tikkar. The sable-furred Tikker, as he was better known, was COFO (Commander of Flight Operations) aboard Salissa, or Big Sal, before the Battle of Madras. He was Leedom’s boss and had brought what remained of Salissa’s 1st Naval Air Wing to join Leedom’s pickup squadrons of Nancys after his ship was badly damaged by suicide glider bombs dropped by zeppelins, of all things. Some of the weapons had even made attacks within the perimeter, but most crashed harmlessly in the lake or surrounding jungle, and their carrier zeps had been shot down. “And there is the ford just east of the lake. Even we must transfer supplies to other barges to bring them here. No baatle-ship can pass the ford.”

  “They might think of something,” Leedom warned. “We can’t ever take for granted just because we can’t do something, they can’t. Not again. If one of their battlewagons—or anything with big guns—ever does make it to the lake, we’ll be in big trouble.” Nobody replied. It was obvious such a thing could be catastrophic.

  “There’s way too many worst-case scenarios for me, the way things stand,” Pete said at last. “We’re holding our own, barely, but the Grik keep growing stronger. We’re standing on the end of an awful thin twig, supply wise, and Keje’s got to figure some way to retake Madras!”

  “Keje will come,” Tikker said with conviction. “Salissa is under repair, and newer, better ships swell his fleet. Colonel Maallory is on Ceylon with his P-Forties, and they await only more powerful weapons.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Pete said, wishing he was. The Grik fleet in Madras was also swelling. He looked at his watch again. “Come on. The Clipper’ll be here shortly. I want to see what they brought.”