Xenophon moved from cover and in front of his commander.
“Komes, I think we should withdraw from this position. They have greater numbers and artillery on the high ground. Until we can silence those positions, we are sitting ducks.”
The leader of the Night Blades nodded in agreement and turned to walk away when he spotted something behind them. Xenophon recognised his expression. It was the look of defeat, and of a man that had seen the inevitable. He climbed up next to the man and looked in the same direction.
“Gods!” he exclaimed.
From the hills and rocky outcrops about a kilometre away, a low-lying cloud had appeared. On closer inspection, it was actually made up of thousands of individuals.
“Mulacs!” muttered the Komes.
“They must have been in hiding underground. The radiation will have masked them when we landed,” shouted Xenophon.
The Komes watched for only a few more seconds and turned to Xenophon and the rest of the Night Blades. More shells and rockets continued to explode around them as the bombardment continued. The hundreds of other Terran troops were still dragging anything they could find to create more cover. Two units had climbed the ruined walls and were setting up some of the captured Mulac heavy weapons. It was starting to look like a fortified outpost, right in the heart of the enemy camp.
The hunters have become the hunted, Xenophon thought with little amusement.
Komes Pasion spoke briefly on his communication unit as he discussed the situation with Dukas Xenias. It was short between them, and they made a quick, yet troublesome decision. He looked back to his stratiotes.
“Look at them. They will be here soon, and that will leave us trapped. The base of the transmitter spire is only four hundred metres away. Once they are past it, we will be unable to reach the base. We will be surrounded, and we will die. Dukas Xenias will manage the defence. We have other work to do. You all know what has to be done!”
He looked at the peak and nodded to himself, making up his mind.
“We will climb. Night Blades, with me!” he cried.
Without even checking to see what the rest did, he rushed forward and towards the base of the lower mountain. His bodyguards ran after him, along with Jack and a handful of the other stratiotes. Glaucon looked to Xenophon.
“He’s right, you know. If we stay here, we’ll all be dead in a few hours. The only chance we have is to shut off that weapon so that Clearchus and the air support can come in. They’ll annihilate them.”
The Laconian flotilla spread out to avoid the ground fire around the Citadel. The energy field might prevent signals or electronics, but it did nothing to stop projectile weapons from firing through. One dromon took multiple impacts but continued flying, and a black smoke trail was the only sign it had been struck.
“What the hell is going on down there?” demanded Strategos Clearchus.
He looked at the visual display inside his command dromon, but nothing other than the red haze could be seen for up to a hundred kilometres in any direction.
“We can’t see through the field, or send craft through it, Strategos.”
“I know that!” he snapped back angrily.
Kleandridas knew full well that his anger wasn’t directed at him personally. The entire wave of Laconian troops was waiting to move in and assist the Arcadians. Three dromons had already gone down upon moving near the field.
“Can’t we just hit the transmitter from up here?”
“No, Sir. The equipment appears to be based inside the mountain and is protected by substantial turret and missile batteries. Our records show they match known Median configurations.”
“Okay, then we bring in bombers from the fleet, and destroy the mountain with atomics.”
Kleandridas nodded in agreement.
“Yes, that is a possibility, but we will not have them for at least three more hours. Also, what will Lord Cyrus have to say about Terrans using atomic weapons on their sovereign soil?”
Clearchus looked at him as he thought on the options. He knew that the Median Lord wouldn’t give him permission to use his most powerful weapons. If he did so without permission, it would mean his dismissal and possible breaking up of the Armada. Even worse would be the wrath of Tissaphernes and his fleet. Right now, it was one formidable battleship. His intelligence staff had already estimated he had access to just as many ships as the Terrans, but they had no idea where the ships actually were at present. He sighed to himself, angry that he couldn’t strike out at his tormentors.
“Show me the geographical data again, how close can we land?”
Kleandridas pressed a button and changed the view to one of the surface of the planet. A red dome appeared covering the Citadel and everything out to a hundred kilometres.
“We can land on the periphery, but it will take more than a day’s hard march to reach the Citadel. The last signal that came through said Dukas Xenias had cleared the outer wall, but not that the Mulac threat was over.”
Clearchus pointed to a range of lower peaks to the north of the Citadel.
“What about here?”
Kleandridas turned the map around and zoomed in. The lower peaks were only ten kilometres from the Citadel but well inside the shielded zone. He looked up, confused. Clearchus smiled.
“Look. We come in at the correct angle to intersect the shield. From here, we are protected from the tower weapons by this higher mountain range,” he said, moving his hand over the map.
“We cut the engines and glide in under manual hydraulics, to this point. We’ll set up a landing zone ten kilometres away from the Dukas and be only a few hours from the Citadel.”
Kleandridas looked dubious.
“Glide? Can it be done?” he asked.
“We’ll find out soon enough. Send the command, we’re going in.”
The first hundred metres had passed without incident on the mountainous peak. The rocky path must have been cut centuries before, perhaps millennia, and little now remained of the original work. Where before, there had been deeply cut steps, now there was crunched rubble and split stones. Even so, it was not as bad as it had looked from the Citadel. The Komes was still at the front, along with a handful of the fitter soldiers plus Xenophon and his comrades. Of the three hundred Night Blades that had landed, only ninety had made it to the base of the mountain. The rest were scattered either amongst the other defenders or among the casualties of the battle.
From his raised position, Xenophon glanced back to see what was happening at the Citadel. He was shocked to see the great horde of the enemy had now completely encircled the defenders. He tapped Glaucon’s shoulder.
“Look.”
He looked down and shook his head.
“They won’t last long against that,” he said firmly as something caught his eye.
“What is it?” asked Xenophon.
Glaucon pointed to the bottom of the path they were following. A group of shapes were moving in the same direction as the Night Blades. He tapped his optical unit and found his first close-up view of the Mulacs. They were of a similar build to Terrans but broader shouldered and encased in crude metal armour. Their heads were much shorter and wider than a human; almost like a thick disc fitted on top of a short but wide neck.
“They’re coming after us, come on!” called out Xenophon so that the rest of the unit could hear him.
Komes Pasion and his bodyguard stopped for a second and looked to see what he was referring to. Two small puffs nearby were the only signal that the Mulacs were trying to hit them with long-range rifles. A number of the stratiotes armed with the longer-ranged pulse rifles took aim and fired back. The Komes turned and continued up the steep and rocky path, and his voice appeared inside the helmet of each of them.
“Ten men with rifles stay here and hold them off. Everybody else keep moving. We have to stop them before it’s too late.”