"You got those mortars silenced yet?"
As if in answer, a bright light arched through the sky from the east; it seemed to hesitate and then plunged down toward the burning chaos of the river base. Launched from a stubby melted-looking automatic mortar, and guided by a fiber-optic cable. There was a tiny Tri-V camera in the nose, but only fractions of a second to guide it in.
"One more down. They have excellent overhead protection, Field Prime, and only open their firing slits for a few seconds."
She gritted her teeth; Skida Thibodeau had always hated excuses. You did it, that was all.
"Field Two, how it going?"
"Hard work, Skilly." Two-knife's gravel voice. "We killing them, but the rabiblanco's not giving up much."
"Keep at it, I get their eyes off you." Back to the Meijian. "Fire mission, ring Base One," she said.
"Yes, Field Prime-that is very close to your position-"
"Skilly know! Skilly says do it, and now!"
"All right," she continued, switching to local push. "Skilly is here, compadres. What you all waiting for, the Cits to send you enough lead you can open a bullet factory? This way up!"
The rockets crashed down, and the air filled with steel. "Follow me!"
"Urrgk."
Private Brother Pyrrhos McKenzie spat, coughed, spat again. The fluid from his lungs seemed to be about half blood and half thick clear something that he didn't want to think about. Everyone else in the bunker was dead, he thought-Ken when the gas came, and Leontes with a bullet through the face in the last attack. He hung over the grips of the gatling, blood and brains from the wound and the inside of his helmet still leaking down on the metal; it sizzled, the breech-ring hot enough to fry the matter that slimed it into a hard crust.
Glad I can't smell, McKenzie thought. The radio was squawking, but there was no time to listen to that.
Breathe. Deep bubbling sounds, like air going through a coffee maker. Cough, and his mouth filled with the heavy salt warmth. Spit. A little better on the next breath. Up. Impossible to stand, haul yourself up handover… handoverhand. Gasping, he stumbled two steps to the firing slit and collapsed over the weapon, knocking the other militiaman's body off it.
"Sorry, Leo," he wheezed; that was a mistake, he went into another coughing fit and something in his chest felt like a hot knitting needle. Only right. Leo and he had been ephebes together, candidates for the Phraetrie. He was going to marry Leo's sister Antigone when they both turned twenty-three. The coughing went on a long time, but he felt a little better afterwards, though, and blinked his eyes clear while his hands fumbled at the grips of the gatling. Took up the slack on the spade grips, and the electric motor whined, spinning the barrels with blurring speed. His thumbs rested on the firing buttons on top of the grips.
God, there's a lot of them. Crawling towards him, but he was nearly level with the ground here. Lots of dead people out there, dead mules and horses, the gas had gotten them. Burning stuff, crates.
He depressed the muzzles, stroked the buttons. Brrrrrrrrt. Brrrrrrrt. The recoil surged in his arms, and he coughed again; the liquid spurted out of his mouth and hit the barrels, spraying. Rebels dropped, killed, sawn in half by the fire. The enemy scattered, rolling out of his line of fire; he walked the bursts over crates, bodies, anything that might give cover. Wood and flesh and mud exploded away from the solid streams of heavy 15mm rounds, bullets that would punch right through a mule. One hundred rounds a second, and there was a big bin of ammunition right there beneath the firing step.
Brrrrrt. They were shouting out there, or screaming or something. Trying to crawl closer. Closer to him and Leo, closer to Antigone and mom. Brrrrrrrt.
Leonidas. Megistias. Dieneces. The heroes of Thermopylae, he'd been a little bored learning that in school. I suppose they didn't want to die either, he thought with a sudden cold lucidity; his knees felt weaker, and the corners of his mouth were leaking. Alpheus. Maro. Eurytus.
Another burst. Another, swinging wide to cover the full arc of the bunker's semicircular firing slit, there ought to be a couple of automatic riflemen in support. More rebels down, others trying to crawl backward, some dragging their wounded.
Demaratus the lesser, Deonates-
Skida slumped to the ground, panting. The ground under her heaved slightly as the satchel charge they had thrown into the last bunker went off; flame shot out the firing slits all around.
"OK," she croaked, as much to herself as to the survivors, and used her rifle to push herself up to her knees; the wound in the leg was not too bad, just a gouge out of the muscle really. Bullets were cracking by overhead, so she crawled to the edge of the sandbags, rolled over onto the ground.
That put her next to Platoon Leader Swaggart; on an impulse she reached out to close his eyes, then surprised herself even more by bending to kiss his brow.
Shit, she thought. Maybe Skilly should have stayed in hidehunting and hijacking.
"Intercept one," she said, paused to swill out her mouth from her canteen. "Field Prime here. Report."
"They got past us."
"What?"
"They had a fucking six-tube rocket launcher under tarps on all the hovertruck roofs, Field Prime! As soon as we opened up they all turned and let us have it, my company is dead and we lost both the recoillesses! I got maybe ten effectives left."
"OK," Skida said. Think, bitch. She looked down at the base. "Shit again," she mumbled.
The wedge below was a sheet of fire, white phosophorus and blown bunkers. They weren't going to overrun the Brotherhood artillery positions. Some of the other penetrations had made progress, but even as she looked tiny figures surged out of the headquarters bunkers and struck the extending flank.
Why? Traitors, it had to be. Someone back at headquarters, knowing she was coming in here, someone who wanted her dead, someone who wanted to take over the Movement, that must be it, and now the Royals were moving. Shit, pretty soon they trap us all! It was hard to think.
"OK, Intercept One, pull back to rendevous." At the firebase they had overrun, the first one north of here.
"Pull back with what? To what? Dis de Revolution! Fuck the Revolution!"
Her phones went dead.
She changed channels. "Field Two."
"Field Two's down," a voice answered her. "Senior Group Leader Mendoza here. Orders, ma'am?"
Mendoza sounded so tired he had almost stopped caring. For a moment Skida did as well.
"He dead?" she cried, voice almost shrill. Two-knife?
"No, hit pretty bad. We're carrying him." Desperation. "Orders please."
No one to talk to. Can't tell this one it's over, time to bug. Skida raised a fist and hammered it into the wound on her leg, using the savage pain to drive her mind back into action.
"Right," she said coolly. "Consolidate, throw back that counterattack. Dig in, put in supressing fire, get your wounded out. I gives fire-control over to you. Sanjuki, got that? Including you special stuff. And get those mortars hopping. All assault leaders," she continued. "Anyone about to break through?"
Silence.
"OK, Plan Beta, prepare. The relief force made it and they going be here soon." About ten minutes. That fast thinking, those rockets. Skilly must see that officer has an accident. "All elements on the east side of the perimeter, Field Prime authorize tactical withdrawal." Bug out.
Run. Live to fight another day. "Time to talk."
She touched a preselected sequence on her helmet, one that would blur her voice.
"Colonel, I have a message," Andy Lahr said. "Claims to be the Helot supreme commander."
"Hah." His command caravan was hull-down, two klicks from the former position of the Eighteenth.
Forty-kilo shells from the heavy mortars were passed overhead and fell into the Helot positions. The armored cars were coming up in support.