Empire of Man 01 - March Upcountry (50 page)

The charges from the cannon were five times as powerful as those from mere plasma rifles, and the volcanic impact of four of them within the confined space of the bailey flashed all of the remaining vegetation into flame and cooked every Kranolta inside the gates.

The remaining plasma cannon on the wall level opened up simultaneously. Their blasts of silver fire were less intense and concentrated than in the confined space of the bailey, but that made them no less effective. They turned the Kranolta attacking the bastions into charred stumps and flaming torches. The hydrophilic Mardukans were particularly susceptible to burns, and the silver death of the plasma cannon was pure horror to them as it swept the top of the wall.

The handful who survived threw themselves shrieking from the wall's height, accepting broken bones or death itself—
anything
—to escape that ravening, hideous furnace.

Pahner stepped back up to the spear slit and looked out over the area in front of the citadel. The true horror within the bailey and atop the walls had been invisible to most of the enemy outside the fortress, and its impact had been lost on them, for all their attention was concentrated on gaining entry themselves. As he'd expected, the horde continued to push forward into the citadel, although with slightly less haste.

"Check fire," he said calmly, face and voice leached of all expression as he gazed down upon the unspeakable carnage.

No need to rout them. Not yet.

"Pull back, you old
fool
!" Puvin Eske shouted. "
Now
will you believe us? This is the death of the clan!"

"Great rewards require great sacrifice," the clan leader said. "Do you think we took this town before without loss?"

"No," the chieftain snapped. "We obviously lost everyone with any sense! I'm taking the rest of my people to the camp. We will prepare to try to hold off the humans when they come forth to take our horns. And may the forest demons eat your
soul
!"

"You shall be cast out of the clan," the elder said calmly. "Coward. We shall deal with
you
after the victory."

"Go into that hell yourself, coward," the younger Mardukan hissed. "Then come tell me of '
victories
'!"

Eleanora O'Casey wore one of the "spare" helmets and the same uniform as the Marines, but unlike them, she'd never been trained to break down the net's clipped transmissions or the military technobabble which comprised them. For her, the majority of the bursts that came over her radio were cryptic "Tango at two-fifty" conversations which, unfortunately, her translator software was useless for deciphering, so she generally depended on some friendly Marine to interpret for her.

In this case, however, the only available translator was Poertena. Which created its own problems.

"What's happening?" she asked the armorer. She, Matsugae, and three of the pilots sat on a pile of ammunition boxes halfway back into the cave that made up the majority of the keep's interior. The noncombatants shared the space with the wounded, Doc Dobrescu, the mahouts, and nineteen nervous
flar-ta
.
Flar-ta
reacted in a predictable animal way to nervousness. It was a hot, smelly existence.

"Tee scummies, they off tee wall," the diminutive Pinopan said with a shrug, "but they getting ready to 'tack again. Tee Cap'n is gonna say somethin' soon."

"How is Roger?" Matsugae asked quietly. He had his own helmet and had heard the terse report of the prince's injury.

"He fine," Poertena said. "Jus' shock. He be fine."

"I'm pleased to hear that," Matsugae said. "Very pleased."

"Great," Pahner said, nodding as he listened to the transmission. "Great. Get him to Doc Dobrescu as soon as possible. I know you don't dare now, but as soon as we open that door, I want him in the keep."

He looked out the slit at the reforming enemy and shook his head. Bravo Company had really whittled them down that time, but the barbs were still coming back for more, and he sent his toot the command that opened the general frequency.

"Okay, people, they're coming back for another round. We took some wounded that time, so we're a little thin on the walls. I want platoon sergeants to select your best walking wounded for bead rifles and send out everyone else you can to stand by as grenadiers. They don't seem to be bothered by casualties, so I'll call for fire a little further out this time.

"Grenadiers, when they start coming through the gate, I want you to fill the bailey with their dead. I think they'll still come on in, so when they start coming up the stairs or over the walls, retreat to the bastions."

He thought of trying to say something stirring, but the only thing that came to mind was "once more into the breach, my friends," which was both technically inaccurate and too theatrical for him. Finally he just keyed the mike.

"Pahner, out."

There was silence over the com for several seconds, except for the occasional laconic transmission of firing points and targets. But then Julian's distinctive voice came over the Third Platoon net.

"Okay, Second Squad. I know I can't be up there with you, but I want you to remember that . . . that . . . you're members of The Empress' Own, damn it." There was a cracked sob, and he choked out the next words. "I want you to do me
proud
. Remember: long,
wildly
uncontrolled bursts!"

A tide of laughter welled up over the net. Gunnery Sergeant Jin was faintly audible, protesting the bad radio discipline, but it was almost impossible to understand him through his own barking belly laughs.

"Remember," the squad leader continued with another sob. "You're Marines, and The Empress' Own! We're the best, of the best, of the best. Well, maybe not the last best. That would be
Gold
Battalion, actually, but—"

"Juliannn," Jin wailed, "stoppp!"

"And, I just want to say . . . if these are our last moments together . . ." the NCO continued.

"Company, stand by to open fire!" Captain Pahner's voice crackled over the general frequency, oblivious of the transmissions on the platoon net.

"Gronningen," Julian said, with another choking sob, to the biggest, ugliest, most straightlaced private in the entire company, "I just want you to know:
I love you, man!
"

Eleanora looked up in surprise and fear as one of the armored plasma gunners fell over on her side, bent nearly double. The academic started to get up to try to render assistance, but Poertena held up his hand to stop her as he switched frequencies on his helmet radio. She watched in fear as his expression slid from worry through annoyance while the plasma gunner first tried to get to her knees, and then fell over again, twitching. O'Casey couldn't imagine what could have happened to the woman, but then the armorer began to laugh. He slid down from his perch on the ammunition boxes, holding his sides, and the civilian's eyes went wide as Doc Dobrescu opened his mouth and began to howl with laughter of his own.

"Third Platoon!" Pahner barked as a burst of bead fire went flying off into the distance and a grenade volley rolled through the enemy's ranks like a surf line of fire and death. "Sergeant Jin! What the hell is happening down there?"

"Ah . . ." Jin replied, then burst into laughter. "Sorry," he choked out. "Sorry, Sir, ah . . ."

A wild rip of bead fire lashed out from Third Platoon's position and sliced into the Kranolta like a hypervelocity bandsaw. Then another. The Mardukans went down like wheat before a reaper, and Pahner heard the distant sound of almost maniacal laughter from the parapet.

"Sergeant Jin!
What the hell is happening down there?
" He couldn't fault the effectiveness of the platoon's fire, but it wasn't like they had ammo to spare.

"Ah—" It was all the gunnery sergeant could say as he tore off his own wildly uncontrolled rip of automatic fire . . . and dissolved into helpless laughter of his own.

Pahner started to bellow furiously at Jin, but the firing quickly got itself back under control, and he clamped his jaw tightly. Then he tilted his head to the side and flipped to the platoon frequency just in time to hear " . . . no, man, really. I
love
you!" followed by hysterical laughter as Gronningen explained exactly what was going to happen to the NCO when he got his extremely heterosexual fingers around Julian's throat.

"
Juliannn!
" Pahner began, then paused as he realized that not only was the firing steadier, but he could actually see smiles on the faces of the troopers on the parapet. Some of those smiles might be a little crazed, but it was obvious that at least one platoon had stopped contemplating the likelihood of death in the near future.

"Buuut, Caaaptain!" the NCO whined.

"And," sobbed Jin, who was well known for his own interests, "I've gotta tell the Sergeant Major I love her, tooo!"

"Okay, people," Pahner said, shaking his head but unable not to do a little laughing of his own. "Let's settle down and kill us some scummies, okay?"

"Okay, okay," Julian said. "Sorry, boss."

"I'm still gonna kill your ass, Julian," Gronningen growled. A burst of fire echoed over the open link. "But I've got other things to do in the meantime."

And so Bravo Company, Bronze Battalion of The Empress' Own, went into battle against overwhelming odds . . . with an uncontrollable chuckle on its lips.

Morale is to the physical as ten is to one.

"Are these stupid bastards ever going to realize that they're beaten?" Pahner wearily asked no one in particular.

Damage from repeated plasma blasts had finally forced him to abandon the gatehouse, which was now a pile of rubble, and move into the Third Platoon bastion. The Kranolta had taken unspeakable losses throughout the long Mardukan day, but still they insisted on charging the castle. And in so doing, they'd whittled their opponents down to practically nothing.

Of the seventy-two members of The Empress' Own who'd survived the initial Kranolta ambush, barely half were still on their feet. Pahner had come to the point of regretting his decision to immure Poertena and Cord's nephews in the keep. They were safe there, but he could have used them on the walls.

He shook his head. There were still several thousand Kranolta out there, and they'd stopped trying to take the keep. The last wave had avoided the smoldering killing ground of the bailey and hurled itself solely against Second Platoon's portion of the wall and its bastion. The attack had crashed in behind a massive javelin launch, and Second Platoon had taken terrific casualties before it could beat off the assault.

As always, the Mardukans' losses had been enormously higher than the humans'. Unfortunately, the Marines could kill hundreds of the barbarians for every one of their own casualties and still lose. It was insane. Whatever happened to the company, the slaughter of the Kranoltas warriors had already been so extreme that the clan itself was almost certainly doomed to extinction, but they didn't seem to care. Or perhaps they did. Perhaps they knew their people had already been effectively destroyed this bloodsoaked day, and all they wanted now was to drag down and kill the aliens who'd slain them.

Whatever they were thinking, they were also lining up for yet another attack on Second Platoon, and he lifted the visor of his helmet to scrub his eyes in exhaustion.

He could shift some of Third Platoon over to Second's area, but if he did that and the scummies hit Third's bastion simultaneously, they would sweep away the reduced defenders. No. The only option was to order Third to fire everything it had into the flank of the assault. That hadn't stopped the last one, but maybe it would work this time. Something
had
to break these bastards.

He shook his head again as the scummies surged forward. The ground was so thickly covered with their dead that they literally had to climb over drifts and hills of bodies just to reach the wall, but they didn't even seem to notice. They just came on through the hail of bead and grenade fire from front and flank until they hit the wall. Then the ladders went up again, and the Kranolta swarmed upward.

The plasma cannon in the keep and Third Platoon's bastion could bear on them as they topped the battlements, but the gunners had to be careful. Not only was there the danger that they might inflict human casualties in the wild melee atop the wall, but one twitch to the side, and the plasma bolts could blow the door right out of the other bastion.

Now that door rang to the sound of axes again, and bead gunners from Third Platoon's bastion picked off the axmen carefully. Again, a burst of beads in the wrong spot would do the scummies' work for them.

Only three of Third Platoon's spear slits overlooked the other platoon's doorway. Against any rational foe, that should have been enough, but these were Kranolta. A bead rifleman stepped back with a jammed rifle, and for the flicker of time required for someone to replace him, a single scummy was able to survive long enough to drive three more blows into the hastily assembled timber barricade.

The barrier had finally taken all it could stand. It crumbled, and a wild, hungry scream of triumph went up from the Kranolta as they saw their chance at last.

Pahner dropped down to the plasma cannon and slapped the gunner on the helmet. He pointed to the open doorway and the line of scummies clawing towards it against a solid wall of bead fire.

"Fire it up!"

"But, Captain—" the gunner began. The angle to the doorway was acute, and it the odds were better than even that none of the plasma bolt itself would carry through it. But they were just
barely
better than even, and even if the bolt itself didn't, blast, fragments, and thermal bloom through the doorway and its covering spear slits would be more than sufficient to turn the bastion's interior into a vision of Hell.

"Do it!" Pahner snapped, and keyed the general frequency. "
Second Platoon! Duck and cover!
"

The gunner shook her head and triggered three rounds into the mass around the doorway, clearing the narrow walkway. Someone shrieked over the radio as the rounds impacted, but there was no time to think of that, and Pahner leapt back to his previous perch as the Kranolta recoiled again.