In this special two-part series finale, the soldiers of A Company, 2/49th encounter a final reckoning, and hungry for revenge, the freedom fighter Alrukhan has to decide what it is that he really believes in.

My original plan was that the last chapter would be the darkest one, and this chapter would have a happy ending. That's probably not exactly true, but stick with it. I'm honestly not too unhappy with how it all turned out. As always, share and enjoy, and please chime in with criticism and feedback! If you like the story, that makes me happy. If you don't like it, the only way I can get better is if you tell me.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

Steel and Fire and Stone, by Rob Baird — Ch. 8, "No Hiding Place"

---

Sinner man, he stumbled and fell
Sinner man, he stumbled and fell
Sinner man, he stumbled and fell
Wanted to go to heaven but he had to go to hell
There's no hiding place down here

No hiding place down here,
No hiding place down here
Well I went to the rock to hide my face
The rock cried out, "no hiding place
There's no hiding place down here"

— American gospel song

"When do we strike back?"

"It's not... that easy," Tindall said. "I can appreciate your anger at the situation, but we're not in a position where we can afford to act rashly here."

Alrukhan was not in the mood for the human's equivocation. The Ibizan hound's ears flattened as his eyes narrowed, and he didn't keep his muzzle from curling. "I'm not acting rashly," he growled. "You can't expect us to sit down and take this. Maybe your housepets will" — with this, he waved his white paw to indicate the world outside the small room. "We will not."

Tindall and his human sergeant, Eisenberg, looked at one another. Arnold took a deep breath. "What do you want to do?"

"That... that thing," the Ibizan muttered; he did not need to clarify the human to which he referred. "He has to be brought to justice. If you cannot..."

"If I cannot, then what?"

"If you cannot, then the Commonwealth will."

He could already guess what was to follow — what vague excuses and rationalizations the human would give for inaction. Tindall did not disappoint. "With what? I've given your men all the light arms I could spare. You're untrained, outnumbered, and overconfident. If you were to attack, you'd be killed."

"But not butchered," Alrukhan shot back.

Tindall bit his lip. "I understand how you feel, Alrukhan. But —"

"I don't want your platitudes." Every time he considered calming down, even briefly, all he needed to do was close his eyes. Then the scenes from the propaganda reel hit him freshly — the sight of the sneering officer in his new fur robe — and the Ibizan had to keep from tearing apart every human he saw. "If they had been humans —"

"If they'd been humans," Sergeant Eisenberg interjected, "that still wouldn't change the laws of nature. With your followers, we're still only three hundred men against twice that number — maybe three times. Now, I won't lie: I probably don't want justice quite as much as you do, but I still want it — and there's no way we can pull it off, terrible as it is."

"I'm afraid he's right," Tindall continued. "I'll consider what we can do, but until then a counterattack is off limits. You're not to engage the Kingdom without my authorization — and until further notice, I'll take over patrols to the north. No sense in risking you guys needlessly..."

It was phrased as patronizing concern for the wellbeing of the Commonwealth, but it was more of the same superior disregard they all treated him with. Perhaps, the Ibizan mused, it was in their nature. Hadn't he known that it would come to this? 

The alliance itself had been his idea: Iskoshunja had thought him an unrealistic optimist for his belief that they could work with the Confederacy. Maybe she had been right. Maybe the convenience was not worth it. Maybe, when they were eventually liberated, Tindall would — as Iskich suggested — turn them back over to the nearest corporate authority. It was not a great surprise: even their own moreaus served only because it provided room and board. Humans could earn citizenship through their service; nakathja earned a paycheck and the shot at an earlier grave.

In their quarters, he paced back and forth in irritation. "I'm not sure what we're supposed to do."

"Did you agree to abide by that human's laws?" The corgi was perched on the edge of her cot, watching him.

Alrukhan shook his head. "No. But he made it clear that we weren't supposed to attack. He thought it would be... foolhardy."

"Such concern for our welfare..."

"I know," he grunted. "But we can't very well attack without them. No heavy weapons, no air support, none of their walkers... there are easier ways to commit suicide, Iskich." He took a seat next to the corgi, and she patted his shoulder gently. She had been growing more affectionate, since their move.

"So much for human morality." The corgi's body was warm as she leaned against him, shaking her head. "If it had been one of theirs, you know, they wouldn't be having this argument."

Here Alrukhan could not quite agree. "I don't think so, actually. Their leader, he's a pragmatist — of sorts. I don't think he would be attacking even if the victims had been his own. It's hard to tell, but... that's what he said. I believe him."

"Then they're cowards." Iskoshunja could always be trusted to treat the world in suitably simplistic terms. "And we'll have to do it ourselves. It was always going to be that way, Rukkich — always."

He draped a long arm around her, hugging the short dog. "So it would seem. I wish I saw how we could, though."

Iskoshunja shoved him away, and then twisted around to pull a thin computer from the endtable. She turned it on, tilting it so that he could see the screen. "Kioshi Sakara, head of the Crimson Water Guild — a third-rate yakuza family. Their primary racket is extorting 'shipping fees' from interstellar merchants transiting yakuza-controlled stations and ports. They have been declining in power over the last few generations; I think this is why they were sent to 'repair' the yakuza's problems here."

"Where did you learn this?"

She flashed her teeth in a knowing grin. "Asking around. Not all of us were rendered comatose by what we saw, Rukkich. Now, Kioshi seems to work in the Kingdom compound we'd identified north of Salem... we matched some of the buildings seen in their propaganda. It doesn't matter; I don't think we'd be able to get anywhere near there."

"No. That would be foolish," Alrukhan agreed. The corgi's computer was flashing other notes — maps, biographies. "Do you have a better idea, then?"

"Well. He lives in Morioka, twelve kilometers to the west. It's a small town. I think we could attack there and escape before the Kingdom was able to properly respond."

"I'll take this to Tindall, then," the Ibizan nodded slowly. "Maybe we can —"

Iskich struck him, with a suddenness that made him yelp. "Don't be an idiot. Nothing good can come from the humans knowing we have this information." His muzzle smarting, Alrukhan rubbed at it and waited for the corgi to continue. "They won't attack — but they'll know that we're planning on it. They'll take our weapons away. And they'll want to know our contacts..."

"Your contacts, I presume?" Iskoshunja had a number of associates, moreau and otherwise, in the world beyond — she had used them to good effect in gathering supplies before their rebellion. "They'd probably want to use them for their own ends..." he mused aloud. "Then what? We act alone?"

The corgi smiled.

She had even dissuaded him from speaking to Lieutenant Benjamin, the peculiarly striped doglike moreau who represented them to the human command structure. It was not until he had begun discussing tactics that she left him alone, and that seemed to be only because she trusted Shura Narrakja.

The shepherd had been learning a great deal from his patrols. He insisted on conducting the planning meticulously, reviewing every possible line of attack. Three times he sent the corgi off on a hunt for more information, and it was not until well into the next day that they were ready. Alrukhan insisted on coming along for the attack, leaving Iskoshunja behind to represent him to the council.

The Commonwealth had been assigned a patrol to the west; he argued with Tindall until the human captain agreed they could bring more men — "just in case." In deference to some sense of honor that he didn't quite know if the human shared, he sent two of them out on the patrol, so they could not be accused of shirking their responsibilities. 

The rest, all of them volunteers, came with him. They still had only one vehicle, but Iskoshunja managed to find a hoverdyne that was still available to be rented — a moving truck, with two human drivers. These required some persuading — ten thousand obols worth, which itself represented a substantial chunk of their entire human currency reserves, looted or stolen from the DEC compound. Alrukhan agreed without hesitation: what good was the money anyway?

He did not know the degree to which he truly believed in Iskoshunja's sources. The sun had settled from sight, and twilight had cast a dark blue smear over the world. Still, nothing moved on the road below. According to Iskich, Kioshi would be returning from the base at any time...

His vision was not the best at night, but his eyes were sensitive to light, and movement, and he caught the twinkle of headlamps when they were still two kilometers away. Three vehicles, traveling in a tightly grouped convoy. Shura had seen them too; he whispered into his radio: "get ready."

One of the two humans lit the signal flares they had placed, and then stepped out into the road, waving his arms slowly. The flares had a harsh, ghastly light, burning shadows into the contours of their human faces. Seeing the obstruction, the convoy slowed, and then stopped. Shura turned up the volume on his radio so they could hear the conversation.

As Alrukhan watched, two men stepped from the first vehicle in the convoy, confronting the human that had flagged them down. A quick rush of some foreign language followed — Japanese, perhaps, but Alrukhan did not know the difference. A moment later, sensing the lack of comprehension: "what the hell are you doing here?"

"Our truck's not working — we were headed down south for the fort, but, uh, warning signs on the hover unit, so we had to shut it down. We were hoping you could help, or... or give us a lift, maybe?"

"We're on official business with the Kingdom. Come on, clear the road." Then the two Kingdom men — both wearing neat business suits — exchanged curt words. "Where did you say you were going?"

The human stammered. "Ah — down south? Then up from the crossroads to Davis?"

"What are you carrying?"

"N-nothing, really. Uh. Running empty."

"Open the truck."

"Well, we —"

"Open it." This was accompanied with a quick gesture; it took Alrukhan a second to realize that a gun had been drawn. Reluctantly, the human led them back to the rear of the truck. He opened the door partway, so that the Kingdom suit could look inside. "What — chikusho! Tanaka —"

He fell backwards, a second before the report of the gun rolled up to where Alrukhan and Shura crouched. The shepherd's muzzle was lined up with the scope of his rifle; without leaving it, he dragged the microphone to his muzzle and barked in quick Nakath. "Go! Go, go, go!"

Alrukhan had never fired a gun, and Shura had agreed that this was not an ideal time to learn. He could only watch the battle unfold. Men spilled from the three Kingdom vehicles, weapons drawn. There was a beat, a moment of calm. Then Shura began firing, the report startlingly loud — Alrukhan had to clamp his paws over his ears. Two of the Enlightened were positioned on the opposite side; they started shooting as well. 

The Kingdom footsoldiers spun, trying to figure out where the shots were coming from — then both doors of the truck burst open, and the three nakathja within leapt forth, tackling the unsuspecting humans. It was quick; savage — a few more shots rang out. Then there was silence again.

"It's over," someone said over the radio.

They had the vehicles emptied of survivors by the time Alrukhan and Shura joined them. Four of them were still alive; two had been shot, and one was holding his arm, rocking back and forth as blood dripped from between his fingers — it had been ripped down to the bone.

"Good work," Alrukhan said. "Is anyone hurt?"

Yareta Rastlan had her paw clamped to her side, holding it. "One grazed me, comrade. That was all he could manage to hit." She spat contemptuously, jerking her muzzle. It was not only her white paws that were stained red: her thick chest-fur was also soaked, and when he looked to where she had pointed Alrukhan saw the curled body of one of the Sanganese. He was unmoving, but his hands were still clutched at his rent throat. The blood that spread from his corpse was black in the unnatural light.

"Have it bandaged, comrade," Alrukhan ordered, and patted the shoulder of her uninjured side comfortingly. "Thank you for your sacrifice." She smiled, dipping her muzzle in gratitude. Alrukhan returned the gesture, and then turned back to the four seated prisoners. The one they had come for was watching him with cold eyes. Alrukhan switched to English as he leaned in. "Something the matter? Are you cold? Perhaps you need a new coat..."

The man remained silent. One of his companions, the one with the wounded arm, spoke first, his voice halting. "We are — we are prisoners of war. We demand —"

Kioshi cut him off, his voice dull. "We're already dead, don't waste your words." He looked to Alrukhan. "I'm the one you things want, anyway..."

Once the prisoners' wrists were bound, he had them loaded unceremoniously into the truck. They left the corpses behind. The two human drivers they had hired had not said anything, and remained silent as Alrukhan joined them in the cab. The ghastly scene revealed itself by degrees as they backed away: the disarray of the convoy, the glittering of spent shells from the short, futile defense... and the slumped bodies that still seemed to twitch as the flares guttered and died.

The human at the steering wheel was older, a large man with greying hair. He was big and strong, like his truck, but his gaze made him look like someone insubstantial and frail. He finally tore his eyes away to look at Alrukhan. "Are you guys... on our side?"

*

Tindall hoped at first that the sound had come from inside a dream, but there was no such luck: as he started tiredly at the wall next to his cot, the knock at the door came again. "Who is it?"

"Emily, sir." 

He rubbed his eyes until they mostly seemed to work again, and pulled on his fatigues. "What's going on, lieutenant?" he asked, opening the door. 

She didn't look any better than he did; her hair was disheveled and her glasses were streaked with grime. "Apparently some of your dogs went hunting last night, sir."

"Which ones? The new ones?" She nodded, and Tindall shut his eyes, biting back what he truly wanted to say. "Those aren't my dogs, lieutenant; we just feed them." 

Lachance smiled softly. "You know what happens when you feed strays, sir," she said. "Word is, they diverted their patrol yesterday and went looking for some human friend of theirs up towards Kingdom territory. You know anything about that?"

He hadn't exactly expected Alrukhan to disobey his order, but nor did it come as a tremendous surprise. "Yes," he sighed. "I do. Do you know where their leader is now?"

"One of the outbuildings, apparently. It seems they've taken prisoners."

Tindall closed his eyes again. If he did not think too hard, it was possible to believe that everything was still proceeding according to some logical plan, and that the moreaus he had partnered with were not behaving so rashly. He couldn't blame them, strictly speaking — he knew how angry Alrukhan had been. 

But this? In the best case scenario, the prisoners they had captured actually were members of the Sangan Kingdom, and not just some hapless civilians that had been thoughtlessly rounded up. In the worst case scenario... well. Tindall wasn't entirely certain. He had never been particularly good at worst-case scenarios.

"Have Eisenberg and Sergeant — Lieutenant — Benjamin meet me there, please."

The building sat on the far side of the perimeter that Tindall considered to mark the edge of their defensible base. They had planted some explosives, some traps to try to hold off any assault — but nobody spent much time in the area beyond the new palisade they'd constructed.

Lachance had showed up with Eisenberg and Benjamin by the time the door opened and Alrukhan stepped out. Tindall didn't really have a good way to judge the dog's mood or tiredness; he seemed reasonably alert, and he nodded to the four. "Hello, comrades..."

"Care to explain what's going on?" Tindall asked. "I hear that you've been sneaking out..."

"That's correct," Alrukhan said, without a trace of shame or hesitation. "As I told you that I would."

"And, as I recall, I told you specifically that you were not to engage without my authorization. Where does it get us now that you have? God damn it..." He shook his head, gesturing towards the door through which the dog had emerged. "Well, what do you have in there?"

"We obtained... information," the canine said carefully. "Intelligence on the whereabouts of General Kioshi Sakara, the man in the video you showed me. Did you know his name? Did you know that he was the leader of an organized crime family?"

He had not known, exactly, but nor did he see the relevance. "No. What's your point? You have him in there?"

"What's left of him, yes," Alrukhan nodded. His voice had still never become animated, and he said this last with such a chill calm that Tindall couldn't help but shudder. "You did not seem to have any claim on him that I would consider... legitimate. We of the Enlightened did. We also captured three of his soldiers; if you'd like, you may have them."

He did not get the sense that Alrukhan was about to attack him, or that the dog was particularly vicious, but he spoke carefully anyway. "I want all of them, General Sakara included."

Alrukhan had big, reddish ears; he flicked them idly, and shrugged. "I do not think that you will find him of much use."

Arnie looked to Eisenberg, and when their eyes met the sergeant nodded. Alrukhan did nothing to stop him as he walked over to the door, opening it and stepping inside. "What were you thinking? Were any of your men injured? Did you take any losses?"

"About a hundred rounds of rifle ammunition. One of the Enlightened was also wounded, but she will make a full recovery, I am certain. As to what I was thinking... chiefly, Captain Tindall, you know exactly what I was thinking: that if someone was going to do what needed to be done, it was apparently going to have to be me. It wasn't a decision I took lightly, don't worry."

They were somewhat like children, he supposed; they acted as they desired, and didn't understand why he could be so upset with it. It was not a line of reasoning he felt comfortable with — he had avoided it with his own men for more than nine months, because they had never given him cause to doubt them or question their behavior.

The door opened again, and Wayne Eisenberg stepped through it. He looked at Tindall, and at Alrukhan. He had a queer expression, blinking — as though he could not really see them, as though he had looked into such darkness that his eyes would never again adjust to the light. Then he doubled over, and vomited.

"Sergeant!" Tindall shouted, as the Wayne half-straightened, holding out a hand to ward them off. He stumbled towards them; they met in the middle, and now the look in the tall man's eyes had changed. It reflected a kind of knowledge Tindall had no desire to ever gain; indeed he could not look long into them.

"How..." Wayne said. His mouth moved, but the question took a long time to finish. "How much of that was he... alive... for?" Even the way he asked it made Tindall's blood grow chill.

"All of it," Alrukhan replied, with a calm that bordered on clinical. "We Enlightened do not worship corpses as you do, sergeant — we would never mutilate a dead body, any more than we would accord it the fanfare of a funeral. We stopped when he did, perhaps half an hour ago."

"Did he apologize?" Corinna asked. "Did he ever express any contrition?"

The dog smiled coldly. "He did, although it was a lie, I believe. It took awhile. He didn't apologize for what he'd done even when he knew that he was going to die. It wasn't until just before his vocal cords gave out, when he could still scream — then, he did, yes. I think he felt it might hasten his demise..."

"Unrepentant almost to the end," Lieutenant Benjamin shook her head — it seemed to carry with it a justification of what Wayne's dark eyes suggested had taken place.

"No, jankito," Alrukhan corrected. "I said the last of his screaming. That was nowhere near the end."

Tindall knew at that moment that he would not enter the building — that he could not. Something in the shame of that weakness hardened him to the rest of what needed to be done. "You've crossed a line. I don't know what you thought you were going to accomplish — whether you thought I wouldn't find out, but... no. No. Lieutenant Lachance — have Alrukhan and his... Enlightened... confined to their barracks building, under guard."

"Yes, sir."

Alrukhan hadn't moved; when Emily reached for his arm, to take it, he held it out obligingly. "You will, of course," he said — to her, or to Tindall, or perhaps to all humans, everywhere — "do as you need to do. There are several other Enlightened inside. I can collect them as well. Ah, but — captain? Before I go?"

Arnie turned. "Yes?"

"He told us something that may be of some use to you. This was before he became... incoherent. He said that the Kingdom is preparing to attack, and soon. They have been gathering the local families. By the end of the week they will have twenty-five hundred men, and a dozen tanks — these latter superannuated models, in poor repair, but at least they'll have them. He said nothing about their plans for attack, but they mean to seize this post back before the end of the month."

The Sangan Kingdom, unlike the Yucatan Alliance, did maintain a standing army of its own — but it was slow to see action. Where the Confederacy relied on its mercenary armies for everything, the Kingdom entrusted its day-to-day defense to various organized crime families. They were allowed to operate with impunity, particularly on border worlds like Jericho, under the assumption that they could be called to come to the Kingdom's aid when needed. 

There were at least some regular army troops left on the planet, Tindall thought, because they had engaged a few of the new Type 105 tanks in the battle of the spaceport. But perhaps there were so few that, like him, they had needed to absorb irregulars to keep up their numbers. And there were many more criminals on Jericho than friendly moreaus... He heard Eisenberg say something to Corinna Benjamin; the moreau looked at him.

"Yes?"

"Just wondering, ma'am, if he... if he deserved it. If that was, ah... fair."

Her short ears laid back, and she stared into the building with far less hesitation than Tindall felt. "What's unfair," she decided, "is he's not still suffering. That's what not fair."

Already the squat building seemed to have become haunted, and his eyes would not remain focused on it. Focusing on the strategic picture allowed him to ignore where the information had come from. "Sergeant," he said. "You think he was telling the truth?"

"I think he was reporting the truth as he understood it," Wayne said. "And I... due respect, sir, I don't think that poor bastard was in much of a position to lie. Twenty-five hundred men, that's not unreasonable. I bet they could round up that many enforcers, if they paid well enough and called in a few familial debts. What are you going to do about the fuzzies, sir?"

"The Commonwealth?"

"Yes, sir."

They could ill afford to lose a third of their strength, even if they were not professionally trained. But nor was Tindall willing to let Alrukhan off the hook. He looked back towards the main part of their base, where the flag of the Yucatan Alliance swayed lightly in an intermittent wind. It had to mean something. They were countless light years from home — abandoned, dirty, tired. None of them had bathed in weeks, or eaten a hot meal. But it had to mean something, that flag. It had to matter.

He would make it matter. Tindall shook his head. "I don't know yet. They're dangerous, Wayne — fucking unpredictable. They don't give a damn about me or what I say, but they'd follow the red dog off a cliff if he pointed at it wrong. They're..."

"Savage," Eisenberg added, softly.

"Yes, that. Lieutenant Benjamin, did you... did you have any idea what they were planning?"

She shook her head. "No, sir. They didn't say a word of it to me."

He searched her face and found no hint of dishonesty. "So they don't even trust you very much. Well, I guess that lets us know where we stand. Lieutenant, I'm going to remove your field commission — it's not a demotion, don't think of it like that, but I need you back supporting your platoon."

"Yes, sir," she nodded obligingly.

"Wayne, I think we have a clock ticking."

*

Not a demotion! Well. That depended on who you asked, didn't it? Corinna took it in stride, along with the good-natured ribbing from Bester and Suresh. She didn't really fault the captain for his decision — and of course, it hadn't meant all that much to begin with.

There was an undercurrent to it all that her men were somewhat immune from. Tindall had done a good job of keeping the propaganda tape from circulating — Benjamin had seen it because she was Tindall's liaison to the non-CODA moreaus. The rest of them knew nothing of what had happened, nor of what had become of its perpetrator.

She had no sympathy for him. She did not know what Alrukhan had done to the man exactly, but even the maternal instinct that had been bred into her as a guardian for her owner's children did not leave her any thought to spare for Sakara. It had probably been the wrong answer to give: Eisenberg had probably been hoping for something more civilized. But there was nothing civilized in what had provoked the Ibizan hound.

There were, now, other issues to deal with. Their Rooijakkals were beginning to break down. They had gone too long without maintenance, and without spare parts. She found Suresh in the hangar bay, with half the guts of his console spilled before him. "Threat warning receiver won't start," he told her. 

"Why not?"

The fennec was contorted in his seat; he carefully extricated himself from the tangle of wires, and held a small circuitboard towards her. "This, is 'why not.'"

She took it, turning the brown plastic over in her fingers. There was nothing particularly distinguishing about it that she could see. "I presume one of the components has malfunctioned?"

"Think so." He held a small testing device in his other paw, and looked down at the screen. "I believe one of the resistors has finally decided to stop resisting."

"Sweet as," she muttered. "Guess that's nothing you can fix?"

"No," he agreed. "Replace, possibly, except that nobody seems to have a replacement, anywhere. Jerry-rig, perhaps. Red said he'd help me with that, but he's got his own problems. The laser designator's only working intermittently — and we've been treating it real good, boss, I swear. Plus, I guess some of the gyro bearings are worn..."

She handed back the circuitboard and leaned against Sigrun's hull, shutting her eyes. "Ah, bugger."

It was like that everywhere. All of the walkers were broken in some way or another. The spare parts were being rationed out like precious gems — a camera lens here, a length of high-voltage cable there. The powerplants occasionally entered their shutdown sequence and had to be manually overridden; nobody enjoyed arguing with a nuclear reactor that truly believed it was time for it to shut down.

Did it matter? In her less optimistic moments she could not credibly say that it did. Outnumbered ten to one, facing highly mobile infantry against which their fearsome Colt railguns were useless? There was not a great deal of cause for optimism and, indeed, she knew that Tindall had tasked most of the men with laying in additional sensor pickets and improvising minefields to try to give them as much warning of the enemy's movements as possible.

Through it all, Alrukhan's moreaus remained sequestered, locked inside their barracks. Once, briefly, she had broached the subject with Tindall; the captain had shook his head, and in the following days she had not brought it up again. But even if they could not fight with the company, they would most assuredly be dying along with it... 

The afternoon was beginning to abandon its struggle against an oncoming night; the base was unusually quiet, with only the sounds of the wind in the antennas of their walkers to lend a sense of life to the scene at all. Corinna stood in the middle of the vehicle yard; surrounded by the Jackals, she could at least feel briefly safe.

"With any luck, they'll attack tomorrow."

She glanced to Bester. "Luck?"

"I'm down to my last pack," he said. "You don't want to know what I had to do for these..."

"Probably not," she agreed, teasingly — but she took one of the cigarettes he offered, anyway. "Any more gripes today?"

The Rottweiler waited until his cigarette was lit to answer; when he did, it was with one of his typically hoarse laughs that sent smoke puffing from his blunted muzzle. "Would it matter if I said 'yes'? Ah, it's doing alright for now, stripes. Took it out for a walk earlier today, and I guess the ADC's doing a bit better. The maintenance guys said they couldn't fix it, of course, but they... washed the memory? Shit, I dunno. Flushed, that was it. They flushed the memory and reset all the calibration points. It'll do for now. I wouldn't want to fight a major battle with it, or anything. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about that..."

"Right." Her lighter didn't work anymore, she discovered; Bester lit another match, and she took a slow drag on her cigarette. Simple pleasures; that was what she needed to focus on. When the initial buzz had ebbed into something warmer, and more soothing, she looked back to the dog.

He grinned. "We'll fight with what we have, stripes. All we can do, anyway, after all. Fight until we can't, and then... well. We've had a good run."

Perhaps he was right, but the coming battle was looming over her as certainly as a condemned man felt the weight of his execution day drawing near. She watched the cigarette brighten and dim with her breathing. "I guess. We could've tried to escape..."

"To where? And where would you put the wounded?" There were still a few dozen of them, in the makeshift hospital; many could not be moved. "Nah. This is us, right here. It's what we have to do. At least they'll remember us, you know? How are your, uh, your feral friends doing?"

"The other moreaus?"

"Yeah."

She shrugged. "Locked up, still. I don't know what's going to happen to them. Hopefully they die quick — you know what the Kingdom will do to them."

"Same as they'd do to us. How come they're locked up, anyway?"

"Got in a fight with the captain," she explained — anyway it was as close to an explanation as she felt she had the strength to give. "He didn't think it was such a good idea to keep 'em on the front lines after that." She inhaled the smoke deeply, and then watched it escape upwards, into the stars. Nobody questioned its departure. "Did you ever think about stuff like that when you were a corporate dog, Bester?"

"What? Freedom? Starting my own country?"

"Yeah."

He shrugged his broad shoulders. "Sometimes. I told you I palled around with Ed Forster. Forster was always about stuff like that. But... it was tough, I suppose. I mean, shit, stripes, there's a lot stacked against you if you think you're going to just up and rebel. They don't like it."

"That's sort of what... I guess... that's sort of what gets to me about them," she said. It wasn't easy to articulate, but serving with the other moreaus had been an interesting experience. They were certainly less refined than humans — or moreaus still under the human yoke. They were independently minded, and difficult to dissuade, but at the same time so rigidly hierarchical that once Alrukhan, or Shura Narrakja had been convinced there was nothing left to say before the others all obediently fell in line.

But then, there was something else to it. She tried to explain to Bester how strange it had been to serve with them, to watch how possessed they were by their own fighting drive. Corinna had seen vicious combat — at Fort Seward, certainly; fighting the isolated sappers the Kingdom had been busily weakening them with since. But if she'd been given a choice of reliving the desperate defense of Fort Seward or standing against Shura's men, the decision would've been instant.

It was less terrifying than it was comforting, even inspiring. "They... they believe, you know?"

"That's part of it," Bester agreed.

"And the other?"

"They ain't fighting anybody else's fight. Only their own."

"I like that," she admitted. 

"Well." Bester shrugged, stubbing out his cigarette when almost none of it remained. "You and Forster."

"Not you?"

"Too stupid to believe in anything," the dog said. "It has its perks, though." When she looked at him quizzically, he grinned his trademark grin to her. "Well, I don't believe we're going to buy it here, either." 

She finished her cigarette, and leaned against the dog. "Ah, I hope not." She felt his muscular arm wrap around her, and she snuggled up beneath it. Sometimes, she felt almost as safe in his embrace as she did surrounded by the Rooijakkals. He let her stay there for a long time; finally he squeezed her arm, and she glanced to him. "Yeah?"

"You want to grab a seat?"

The rear hatchway of a Jackal served as well as anything else; she unlocked Sigrun and they sat, legs dangling. "Can't believe it's been so damned long..."

"Since?"

"Since I joined you guys," she shrugged. She reclined against the big dog, letting her head rest on his shoulder. "Seven and a half months. Feels like yesterday we were back in the training sims at Fidchell, learning the ropes..." That, she recalled, was two planets ago. 

"God," he snorted. "So it does."

The next thought that struck her was more subdued, and it took a few seconds for her to realize it. "You know, though?"

"Hmm?"

She laughed, a quiet, gentle sound, and looked up at him. "I don't regret it. I really don't. Even knowing... knowing where we're going to end up," she finished as neutrally as possible. "Even that, I'd do it again."

The Rottweiler nodded. He looked at her for a long time. He had soft eyes, softer than she'd first thought. They met hers warmly, and she knew that he was going to kiss her several seconds before he did. Still, tilting her muzzle to meet his lips warmly, the contact brought a muffled gasp from her.

Her arms seized him firmly, pulling herself into his stocky frame, the fur soft and warm under her long fingers. Such a human gesture, the kiss, but she sank into it willingly, and when she felt his tongue seeking her lips she parted them in open invitation. He slipped into her long muzzle, exploring her hungrily — each touch plucking at her nerves until he pulled away to leave her panting; aquiver.

"You'd do that again, too?" the dog asked. It was a teasing question, for he was out of breath as well.

When she went for his muzzle he leaned back, settling into the floor of the Rooijakkals and pulling her along with him. His foot kicked at the hatch and it swung shut. Then in the darkness there was nothing but the feel of the canine's body, and his familiar scent, and the sound of his voice in husky whispers, and had the world ended in that moment she could've asked for nothing more.

*

One sensor going off could be an anomaly. Two was unlikely. Eight... Tindall shook his head. The Kingdom's advance had a broad frontage — more than a kilometer wide. And, according to the acoustic sensors at least, they were loud: Jamal Curtis said it was impossible to tell how many of them there were, but two thousand was not an unreasonable estimate, and the number might've been higher.

The only bright spot, he decided, was that they were not attacking from the south, where his defenses were weaker. They might choose to flank him, and push up the southern edge of the base, which he had abandoned — but they would have time to see that, and perhaps to mount a response.

They looked to be attacking in the same way the Confederacy had — up the shallow slope that ran from the plains to the north and west. There were only a few shallow ridges, but plenty of trees lent cover and they could approach with relative impunity. Four hours, he thought; they probably had four hours.

Eleven of the gunships were in good enough shape that he thought it worth bringing them airborne. This was a gamble; they had fuel enough for one sortie only, and he would have to be judicious in choosing when to launch them. Too, they had nothing left in reserve: once the ammunition was expended, the Griffons and Strixes would be useful only as kamikazes — and he did not intend to ask them to make that sacrifice.

Eleven gunships, two improvised mortar sections, and two hundred soldiers — just over fifty Rooijakkals, plus the command mechs. He chewed on his thumbnail until it was bleeding, trying to figure out what they could reasonably expect to hold, and for how long. None of the answers pleased him. They could blunt the enemy's advance, but not indefinitely, and once they were inside the Rooijakkals' minimum engagement range the battle was completely over.

There were too many ways to approach. A thick forest would offer plenty of cover for the Kingdom's infantrymen, who could sneak up until they were barely four hundred meters from the wire of the fort's perimeter. "Burn it," Vallis Carignan said. "The incendiary ammunition; we have lots of it. Burn the whole forest."

That cut their enemy's approach path in half, between the broad plain Tindall's company had once charged up, and a narrower rise to the north. "They can push both of those, still," Arnie pointed out — although even as he said it, he realized what Carignan had. "But if they do that, then they won't have enough men to flank us further to the south. Alright. I want you to take command of this wide approach here."

Vallis nodded, and tapped a few notes into his computer. "That won't be enough."

"I know. I'll put two platoons in reserve just to your east, and take the rest of my company to try to hold the northern pass. If they can't infiltrate through the woods, then... we ought to be able to hold out, at least until the Griffons run out of ammunition... it's not the best situation, but..."

"Maybe we'll get lucky." Eisenberg didn't sound as though he believed it.

"Lucky?"

Vallis grinned, a cold, fatalistic grin. "Maybe they're just passing through."

Realistically the fort would be a pitstop anyway; Tindall was not so delusional as to think otherwise. Even against two thousand untrained mobsters, there were only so many shots one could reasonably take before being overwhelmed. "Once they get inside the minimum engagement range of the main guns, I think we have to surrender, sir." Eisenberg's suggestion was offered quietly, and the curl of his lips made the words look bitter and unpleasant. "Otherwise we're just throwing lives away."

"It's more complicated than that, Wayne," Tindall said. He jerked with his bleeding thumb out the window, towards where a stalled mech was being worked on by a few of his soldiers. "The rumor is, as you know, that if we're overrun, not everyone is genetically compatible with being a prisoner of war..."

"You mean the OTHs.."

The ransom value of a human being was high — high enough that Tindall and the other humans would be valuable prisoners. The men of his company, though... and the DEC moreaus under armed guard in one of the barracks... "We'd be condemning them."

"We could negotiate, perhaps," Eisenberg suggested. "For their safety. At least until the Alliance can get us out of here and barter for our damned hides."

"But you know they won't take that."

"No?"

Vallis Carignan shook his head. "They have no reason to negotiate. Not on a point of pride like that; not when they can simply ignore us for the same effect. If you surrender, you are complicit in what happens afterwards..."

"If we don't, we're throwing away hundreds of people for a gesture, sir. Due respect."

"Yes, sergeant," Vallis agreed. "A gesture that you still understand the difference between right and wrong. There is something to be said for that, even in these times. Your men deserve better than to be abandoned like some sort of burden, while you escape..."

Wayne and Lachance were quiet, leaving Tindall to his thoughts. The possibility of an outright victory was scanty, but then if they could not expect to hold out, then why were they fighting at all? Why not simply surrender as soon as the enemy appeared? Because, he knew, Vallis was right: because he could so easily discount what would happen in the aftermath.

He thought it would be difficult to speak until he heard the words leaving his mouth. They were the words of someone decisive — not some thirty-something captain, staring annihilation in the face. "Vallis, let your men know I expect them to discharge their responsibilities at all costs. Remind them that the enemy will give no quarter, and that we will hold this damned place as long as a single one of us is drawing breath."

Carignan straightened himself up, and gave a cold, curt nod, his bearing impeccably martial. "Of course." When he offered his hand, Tindall took it, and they shook firmly. "On ne passé pas, captain."

When he had left, the room fell silent once again. Wayne Eisenberg looked at the tactical map they had been working on. Displacement lines were marked in dark blue. There were not enough of them — nor enough mines, nor enough reserves. Tindall tried to make himself understand that his death would take place before the day was out. 

He wrote a quick note to his parents — there was some hope that it might get back to them, at least, when the Kingdom captured the building he occupied. He was rereading it, wondering if it sounded too dark, when Lachance stepped in from the outside. Her voice, too, was subdued. "Captain Carignan has gathered his company to speak to them."

"Do the same, then."

Two hundred men did not, Tindall thought darkly, seem like so many. They fit neatly into a small section of the base. Carignan had a few moreaus, now — OTH soldiers who had escaped the annihilation of McKeever Spaceport and, for reasons of skillset, had not had a reason to join Tindall's company. His men looked weary, with darkened faces — but hard, much as the gallic warrior himself did.

It was harder to tell, with the moreaus, but they had to be feeling the strain, too. He gathered them as close as he could, around his Swartrenoster, turning up the loudspeaker and activating the microphone.

"At ease," he said; they dropped their salutes crisply. "And good morning. As you are probably aware from rumor, we are about to come under attack. I do not mean to underplay the gravity of the situation: we are outnumbered, possibly, by as many as ten to one. Our enemy is not as well trained, nor as well equipped — but they are as dedicated, and as fierce. It will be a hard day. Some of us will not survive." No one stirred; the rumor mill had apparently been effective, and nothing he said came as a surprise.

So he continued. "It has been nine months since I took command of this unit — nine months since I first looked out on what were then, ah... well. Rather alien faces. Since then, we have visited our share of planets, and shed more than our share of blood. We have met our enemy in battle before. Today... today we must do it again, and I have no doubt that I go into it commanding the finest soldiers the Alliance has ever entrusted to her defense.

He paused at the sound of a rising, lyrical voice. "Contre nous de la, yrannie, l'étendard sanglant est levé!" Next to him, Carignan had begun to sing, and as Tindall watched, more and more of his men joined in. "L'étendard sanglant est levé..."

Arnie swallowed heavily. He could not continue. "It has been, and will be, a great honor to serve with you."

The chorus next to him was a deafening shout. Even the moreaus in Carignan's company were taking part. "Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons, marchons! Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!" A cheer rolled from the gathered soldiers. "Good hunting!" 

The inside of his command mech felt instantly familiar. Bathed in the warm glow of the computer screens, he might've been anywhere — in civilian territory, or a simulator somewhere. It was like putting on a comfortable jacket. Jamal Curtis started filling the holographic map with symbols. Their walkers, the orbiting Griffons, and then — more ominously — the rolling tide of thermal and acoustic signals drawing near.

Without the orbiting satellites, they had only the archaic radios to communicate. The voices were strange; robotic. "Sundown, this is Blackhawk 5-6, contact, three-thirty for seven. Over."

"Got it," Curtis nodded. His hearing had partly returned, but not completely; he spoke too loudly, and relied as often as possible on orders given in text.

Now that the enemy was so inarguably there Tindall had no time for fear. The instincts were coming back. Specialist Miller, his radioman, seemed to be the same way; the collie's voice was business-like and official. "Sundown. Understood, Blackhawk. Out." His ear flicked. "Captain Tindall, we are being hailed."

"Put it over the intercom."

"... reach the commander of the forces of the Yucatan Alliance. To you I offer a way to save your lives. There will be much bloodshed if you attempt to fight us, and you will lose anyway. Much better to abandon your hopeless position. You will be treated fairly, and kindly, and repatriated at the earliest possible convenience. You have ten minutes to respond to this offer."

Arnie took a deep breath. "Specialist. Send the signal to execute order Bravo."

*

It was not possible to see anything terribly clearly from the cockpit of a mech. Chanatja let Astra tell him what was happening. Two Rooijakkals platoons and the entire artillery battery opened fire at once, and when the rounds landed Astra gasped aloud. The destruction of the Kingdom fleet in orbit had unleashed a burst of light and heat that had destroyed much of the forests around the outpost — now, ninety hectares of what remained was ablaze. 

"Sundown actual to all units: weapons free. You are clear to engage at will."

A moment later, another transmission came through, closer to them: "Kia ora, this is Cortana. Listen up! We have an extremely simple objective: prevent the enemy from crossing line Idaho, directly to our north. We have four gunships and one mortar battery tasked to support us. Patch all requests for fire directly to me. Anything you see is hostile. Let's get these bastards. Out."

Chanatja did not care. He knew that Cortana — Sergeant Benjamin, herself a moreau, though not one he really understood terribly well — was very upset about something. Rumor had it that some of the newer nakathja — the Commonwealth — had fought a battle somewhere of their own accord, and they were fiercely angry at something as well. They also appeared to be imprisoned, and he did not know why.

Perhaps they had transgressed in some way against CODA. If so, perhaps they were right to have done so — on the other hand, perhaps they were not. Chanatja had no opinion. The shepherd had only one desire: he wanted to live.

A kilometer behind him, Carla Martin was still recuperating at the base hospital. She was getting stronger — strong enough to carry on a conversation for nearly half an hour at a time before, exhausted, she relaxed into the bed and he let her drift off to sleep, holding her hand tightly in his paws.

The doctor said that she would make a full recovery. It would not matter. None of it would matter at all if they wound up dead. He did not blame the Kingdom for their aggression; he was not angry at them — merely bitter. Over the radio, Tamara Szanto was giving more specific orders, setting up their firing arcs.

"Contact," Astra said. "Right one, six thousand meters. Infantry in squad strength."

Chanatja toyed with the uncooperative scanners until he could bring them up on his scope. Seven or eight soldiers, glaring fuzzily in thermal vision. It took two tries to get the laser designator to work — it had been failing to start, on occasion. "Got 'em. Rocket, I guess." He selected a single high-explosive round from the launcher. "Ready."

Ajay dropped the mech into its stabilizing crouch — gingerly; its hydraulics were beginning to become unreliable, as well. "Shoot."

The rocket streaked upwards, curving in a shallow arc. It slammed home; his camera screens went white. "Good hit," Astra said. "We're — oh, fuck, incoming! Ajay, left twenty meters, get defiladed in that crater!" 

The leopard brought them deftly into the evasive maneuver, but not before Chanatja heard the crackling rattle of impacts against their hull. Reflexively he glanced upwards; no new holes in the roof. Ajay carefully lifted the mech up — a barrage of fire greeted them. "Ah, Astra..."

"Trying to sort it," she growled. The lean muskrat's ears were pinned back, and her teeth were bared slightly. "There's at least thirty signals... mostly light weapons, but they'll have a recoilless or... something..."

"Calu, this is Hati, we are pinned down." Raghava was a big tiger, completely fearless — even now his voice betrayed more irritation than concern. Chanatja glanced to his map: Hati was a hundred meters away, also taking cover, behind a gentle ridge. "Ah, Skoll, can we get some covering fire, here?"

The mech lifted slightly; it was not even all the way up when an alarm sounded. "Missile launch! Multiple inbound tracks, twelve o'clock — good lord!" The APEC cannon buzzed a few times; presently, Astra reported that the missiles had been defeated. But her ears were still pinned, and she looked bleakly into her screens. "Ah... that's at least forty infantrymen, and we took three missiles there. Threat card has them as, uh, T-65s, light man-portables..."

"You are saying we are also being pinned," Ajay said; she muskrat grunted. "Ah, Hati, this is Skoll, negative. We can't get a firing solution before they light us up. Over."

There were simply too many of them. Szanto ordered an airstrike, and a Griffon swept in with guns blazing, but by the time Ajay had their Rooijakkals back in position they were already being shot at again — rounds pinging off their hull with a startling clang. The Kingdom attackers did not seem to be able to fire missiles faster than the APEC could shoot them down... but they would run out of ammunition, and then... 

Astra was calling out more targets; he forced himself to focus. Calculate the solution. Fire. Damage assessment. Calculate. Fire. Damage. Calculate. Fire. His paws were shaking. Another salvo rattled their walker, taking out one of the antennas; Ajay put them back in cover while they tried to fix the worst of the damage.

"Hati, Skoll, let's pull back seventy meters and see if we can't find some cover..." Szanto sounded calm, but the order to begin retreating was worrisome: there was only so much of it they could do. 

"Target right — fucking — targets everywhere! Just shoot at them already."

He couldn't. The worn gyros protested every time the mech moved, and they moved often — ducking around rockets and bursts of increasingly accurate heavy weaponry. He squeezed the trigger; Skoll bucked, and a few bright bursts appeared downrange.

The calls on the radio, too, were becoming more desperate. He heard a distress call from Hildr, in the other section — then a sudden burst of static, and the line went dead. Silverberg, Chanatja had time to feel the pang of scarcely acknowledged loss strike him — they had been friends since the company had been organized. Hati no longer responded to their radio calls either.

"Damn it!" Astra swore, bringing a balled fist down against her console. "Damn it, give us a fucking chance! They're closing through three kilometers, Ajay."

"I seeing this, yes," he grunted. "Need to displace again."

"Come back thirty, I think there's enough of a depression to get hull-down."

"Moving."

The Jackal made it two strides before they took three rounds in quick succession — each a loud crack! that made Chanatja's ears ring. His hearing returned to the sound of alarms, and the mech swayed precipitously. "Ajay, give me thirty left for the APEC," Astra shouted over the din. They had come to a halt. "Ajay! Thirty left!"

"Ajay?" Chanatja asked. There was no answer. "Hey!" He leaned forward, tugging the leopard's arm. Ajay slumped to the side, and a line of blood ran down his arm, spilling over the seat and soaking the white shepherd's paw. "Oh — yassuja!" He unfastened his harness — next to him, Astra was doing the same, moving forward in the cramped cockpit...

A neat hole had been punched in the cockpit glass. The one in the leopard's chest was far messier. His head lolled; his eyes were open, but sightless. Obliterated, was what the shepherd thought — as he stared, gaping, and then looked to Astra. The muskrat's muzzle was moving slowly. He could hear nothing — nothing at all — not even the cockpit alarms. The world was fuzzy; dragging, like it had been trapped in amber. He could see the fur of her arm rippling — she was reaching past the leopard's body... grabbing for the shepherd... seizing his shoulder, shaking him. 

Everything snapped back into focus. "— me move him!"

"Wh-what?"

"Help me fucking move him," she ordered; she already had his harness straps undone. Between the two of them they pulled him from the seat, until he tumbled in an ungainly heap back into Astra's station. Blood spilled untidily over the brushed metal of the computer frame, dribbling down the sides of the console. He had to look away.

"What now?"

Astra growled, baring flat teeth to him. She dropped into the pilot's chair, tugging the harness straps tight. Her paw slammed the warning panel until most of the alarms quieted. "Get back on the guns, Channich." Blinking, he did so, settling back in as Astra grabbed for the controls and they lurched backwards unsteadily. The APEC barked — he saw a bright flash, and shrapnel rained down on them. Heedless of the noise, Astra swung the boom of her headset microphone into place. "Durandal, this is Skoll."

"Durandal. Skoll, we need to displace RFN. Over."

"Ah. Negative, sir," Astra said; her paws were clutching the controls tightly, feeling how the mech performed at her touch. "Our pilot is dead and we are seriously compromised. We will cover your withdrawal as best we can. Over."

Chanatja's ears flattened. Secretly he wanted to hear Durandal order them to retreat, order them to stay alive for even only a few minutes more. "This is actual," Ellie Bishop said. "Understood, Skoll. Good luck. Durandal out."

"Then we..." Chanatja shook his head. "Ah..."

"I'm bringing us forward, back to our first position. Firing arcs are better. Be quick with those cannons, janhata..."

He checked their ammunition, and flipped the selector switch from the kinetic rounds to their high-explosives. "Ready. But... but we're just one mech, against —"

"Against a lot of poor bastards who don't know what's going to fucking hit them," she snarled. They jerked forward; she swore again, and the ride steadied a little. "AT soldiers, 355, 3500 meters. Kill them"

He stared into his scope, trying to find what she was looking for. "I'm not — even if we get these, we're..." from the corner of his eye he could see Ajay's body. His blank eyes were pointed directly at the shepherd. "Just..."

"Chanatja, clear your goddamned head. Do you see my target or not?"

"I..." He tried again — yes, there they were. Hiding behind a rocky outcropping. "Ready."

She dropped the mech hard, with neither Ajay's skill nor subtlety. "Shoot, damn it."

He pulled the trigger, and the rocks shattered and burst. "Hit."

"350, six guys setting up a mortar, I think. Put a rocket on them." Again he fired; this time his thermal camera showed only the wall of fire, and the flaming debris cast about by the white-hot explosion. Astra brought the mech back to its feet — but then they were advancing forward again, ten meters closer to the enemy, dropping in behind a curve in the road.

The APEC whirred uselessly above them, out of ammunition — but they got off another four shots before the inevitable missile struck. The mech spun, lurched; collapsed on its broken left leg. Chanatja grabbed for something to steady himself, and pain shot up his arm as they crashed to the ground. He couldn't even tell which way gravity was trying to pull him.

"Warning. Reaction temperature critical. A nuclear meltdown is in progress. Warning. Reactor temperature critical. A nuclear meltdown is in progress." A mechanical voice chanted it tonelessly; the dim shape that was Astra was feeling around for the controls. Coolant hissed, and the lights all went out. 

"Scrammed," she said. Inside it was deathly silent. When he could orient himself, he decided that he was on his side. Only the straps were keeping him in place. Astra seemed to be in a similar position, trying to get herself upright again. 

"Are you okay?"

"I... think so," she said. "Just got to — oof!" Her harness fell away, and she sat unsteadily on the edge of her chair. "How about you?"

"I'm... alive," he decided. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Now?" The muskrat glanced around, and swung her short frame towards one of the boxes bolted to the wall. She kicked it, hard — her boots slamming into it until the door finally came open. The weapons locker. As he unbuckled himself from the stricken mech, standing awkwardly on what used to be the side wall, he saw her reach into the locker. She retrieved two carbines, handing one to him. "Now we keep going."

*

"First line of fougasse has been triggered," Wayne said coolly, over the radio. Tindall could see it on his map, too; jets of flame spurting up — doing too little damage, far too little, to the scattered attackers approaching them. "But we can't hold this, sir. They'll be at the disengagement line in... twenty minutes. Maybe."

"Sitrep?"

"Bishop's lost half her men. We've lost contact with Parker; Sergeant Kato has taken over her platoon. Two mechs destroyed, two more damaged. We've been pushed back almost three hundred meters."

The Kingdom had done as he'd expected — with the forest ablaze, their commander had split his attackers in two. They were still trying the more direct approaches, partly because they afforded the most cover and partly, Tindall thought, simply because they were the easiest. Their enemy had no great reason to be afraid.

The dozen mechs of 2nd and 3rd platoon were trying to hold out against at least three hundred infantrymen, and probably quite a lot more — Warrant Officer Curtis couldn't be certain. Tindall bit his lip. "Specialist Miller, get me Carignan."

He heard the line go active. "Yes, captain?"

"Vallis, we're going to lose the northern slope. I need to commit the reserve there." He had promised two platoons would be available to reinforce the broad fields Vallis was trying to keep clear — but if the Kingdom breached their lines to the north, that wouldn't matter anyway. They had no choice.

"Understood," Carignan said simply. "We'll make do with what we can."

They would not — indeed, they could not; it was an impossibility. Fifteen hundred Sangan troops were steadily pressing forward, slipping from rock to rock, even as they tried to wear the assault down. They had to use the Griffons sparingly. Miller reported that even their mortars were red hot, and needed to be cooled before they could resume firing without danger to the crews.

Make do with what we can. "Apache 1-6, Apache 4-6, move immediately to support Parker and Bishop in the north. We need to hold that line if it's the last thing we do — you're our last hope there. Sundown out." All of it, everything he could do, was too little, too late. Miller was trying to get his attention; grimacing, he lifted his head. "Specialist?"

"Uh. The moreaus you'd had under guard, sir. They've escaped. Last seen moving to the east."

"Running away?"

"Looks like it, sir."

He snorted. He wanted to give up — to abdicate the last of his responsibilities. But then... but that would make a liar of him. And at least it was one worry off his mind — he doubted that Alrukhan had any interest in taking up arms, and he wasn't likely to attack them even if he did. "Well," he decided. "I hope they make it."

*

They knew that a battle raged outside. Alrukhan did not know the details, but they could hear the constant rumble of gunfire, and the forest to their northwest was a wall of flame, with thick smoke pouring upwards. More and more smoke now stained the sky — thick, greasy lines drawn on the blue sky.

And they would sit it out. It was, of course, a human battle. The Enlightened did not need to have anything to do with it. But he watched the smoke with interest. Alrukhan had been thinking more about the humans in the days he had been under house arrest. 

Sakara had deserved his fate — even now Alrukhan did not feel guilty about a single second of it. But the more he thought about it, the more he wished that he had not undertaken the mission. Vengeance was a human emotion, a human desire. That sort of brutality, that mindless, feral rage... it was at best unbecoming and at worst a betrayal of some fundamental principle or another. He did not want to admit this, but there it was: there was no place to hide from what they had done.

Tindall had been willing to work with him, after a fashion. Certainly he seemed to have captured the spirit of the moreaus under his command. Those that he had spoken to did not seem particularly brainwashed, and this was a little puzzling to him. They served willingly a state that considered them to be... well, they were not second-class citizens; by any definition they were not citizens at all.

"Why," Iskoshunja asked, before he could meditate further. "Are we still here?"

"What do you mean?"

"Rukkich," she grumbled. "The humans are distracted. There are only a couple of guards. We could break out. We could escape while the Kingdom and the Alliance are at each-other's throats." He hadn't considered that. It was a good point — they had no reason to stick around and wait to be captured, or shelled.

Gathering the Enlightened took only a few minutes. He opened the door to find the human guard, rifle unslung. "Yes?"

"We're leaving now," Alrukhan told him.

"You can't. You're under orders to stay here."

The Ibizan hound nodded gently. "I know. But there are more than a hundred of us. You will not be able to shoot us all. And there are more important things for you to be doing..."

He was a young soldier, with a thick face that made him look more like a human cub than many of the others. "Well... but..." More nakathja had filed from the building; his eyes swept them, and he didn't fight back when Alrukhan gently pulled his hand from his rifle, letting it dangle limply.

The Commonwealth was armed, as heavily as they could manage — Tindall had made no move to confiscate the small arms, presumably because he understood that Alrukhan would not shoot him. Once they were all assembled, Alrukhan pointed towards the east, through the remains of the old base to the horizon beyond. "Come on, comrades; let's move."

They had gone two hundred meters or so before Shura Narrakja jogged up to find him. "Where are we going?"

"East. Away from here."

"We're abandoning them?"

"That's right, comrade."

Narrakja frowned; his ears flattened, and he looked back at the horizon to the west and north, a solid, black stain spreading through the late-morning sky. "But..."

"There are better things to do than watch their squabble," Iskoshunja grunted. The corgi's pace had not slowed. "We'll move somewhere you can make new friends."

"Comrade," Shura said softly. "These here in the Commonwealth are not our only brothers. There are many nakathja in the human ranks..."

This had bothered the Ibizan, at least slightly; he nodded. "I know."

"We can't leave them behind. Nor the humans that fight with them. I know they're not... like us. Inferior in many ways, even. But comrade... comrade, we have to do the right thing..."

Alrukhan came to a stop. "Which is? Fighting the human's wars for them like we do everything else for that miserable race? Come, come, Shura — what would be the point?"

"The point is that they are comrades in arms. And we're fighting a common foe, comrade Rukkich."

As if to punctuate his remark, a bright glare briefly appeared on the horizon, then faded; the explosion reached them like thunder, at several seconds' remove. Iskoshunja looked between the two, unmoved: "We appreciate the help that the humans were willing to give, of course, but — comrade Shurrich, we must not lose sight of what truly matters..."

Alrukhan tore his gaze away from the sky, and looked between Iskich and Shura. What was to be their legacy? Iskoshunja had charged Tindall with being a coward for his unwillingness to pursue General Sakara. Well, here they were, making ready to flee, with their tail between their legs. 

"It's a question of honor," he told the corgi, gently. With a short bark, he summoned the other council members. "Comrades, Shura Narrakja says that we should not shrink from the battle to our west. It is fought against one of our most terrifying foes — and many of those fighting are like us. I agree with Shura; I say we prove our worth to the universe here and now, with those who were also willing to stand with us..."

Iskich argued, and grumbled all the way back — but not for nothing was the Commonwealth democratic in its actions, and she could not well overrule the council. The chaos and din of the battle became more apparent as they reached the edge of the base; Shura Narrakja pulled out a computer, and looked at it thoughtfully. "Ah..."

"You see what's happening, comrade?"

"They attack on two fronts," the shepherd nodded. "There's a thin track to the north where it is... easier, I think, to contain the assault. To the west, there are so many of them... it is not ideally suited for the Alliance's walkers." They were outside the perimeter of the base, now — Alrukhan could see the heavy mechs, crouched, appearing only briefly to fire, and then return to cover as their active camouflage shimmered and rendered them invisible. Many of them were already smoking, twisted wrecks. "They need to move to a new defensive line, I think. One that lets them shoot from higher ground."

"And we can help?"

Shura nodded again. "Of course, comrade."

"Then do it."

The shepherd broke out his radio, fixing his headset into place. He stared at his computer, glancing between it and one of the mechs — an unarmed one, humpbacked and squat. "That must be... Captain Carignan, I guess. Blackhawk 6, this is Shaka 6."

He twisted the volume up so Alrukhan could hear. The radio crackled: "This is Blackhawk 6 actual. Who the hell is this?"

"Shaka 6. We're the auxiliaries, Blackhawk. Can I get a sitrep? Over."

"Blackhawk 6. Six walkers down, plus three damaged. Seventy percent strength. Enemy is closing on our disengagement line — if they come much closer they are below the effective depression of the guns. We will have to displace eastward, closer to the base. Over."

"Shaka 6. I have one-zero-zero men with me, east and north of you two hundred meters." Shura was comfortable with English; comfortable even with the clipped speech the humans used over the radio. He would be a natural in uniform, although he wore his armor over bare fur. "We can cover you; just say the word. Over."

"Blackhawk 6. Mon dieu, yes — ah, affirmative. Let us know when you're in position. Out."

Shura gave his orders decisively — more commandingly than even Iskoshunja generally managed. Then he unslung the rifle from his shoulder, handing it to Alrukhan. The Ibizan frowned. "What is this, comrade?"

"This is the safety. This is the trigger. Half pressure stabilizes the barrel to hit at what you're looking at. Full pressure fires one round or a three-round burst. Fire selector here." He pushed it firmly into Alrukhan's paws, so that he had to take the heavy thing, warm from the shepherd's paws. "Anything to our west will be the enemy."

The metal still felt alien to him. But Shura Narrakja was their military leader, and Alrukhan was bound to follow him. He took cover with Yareta Rastlan, behind the wreckage of a vehicle destroyed in the last battle. He kneeled like she did, and discovered that the ground was still wet with dew, soaking the fur of his knees. "Hello, comrade."

"It's easier at closer range," Yareta said. She was not using one of the Alliance weapons — she still carried the rifle they had scavenged back at the DEC compound, a heavy civilian model with a long barrel. Her claws had cut two notches into the wood of the rifle, he saw, since their ambush of the Kingdom convoy. 

As he waited, she leaned up, took aim, and pulled the trigger, dropping back down swiftly behind the vehicle. Seconds later, the air above them crackled to life; rounds pinged loudly off the metal, and spun hissing into the ground all around them. Yareta growled, and stood again. This time, when she sat back down, her claw scored the rifle's stock.

Alrukhan flipped the safety switch, as he had been shown, and stood. Bracing his rifle on the wreckage, he looked through the scope — numbers flickered across it. Wind speed. Range. He had twenty-four rounds left in the magazine. A bullet struck half a meter from his head; sparks rained down on him, and with a yelp he ducked back into cover. 

"Faster, comrade Rukkich."

He took a deep breath, and then another. Steeling himself, he leaned out of cover again. He caught movement in his scope — a man with a big machine gun, scrambling from one spot of cover to the next. The Ibizan centered the red dot in his scope over the man, pulling the trigger in halfway as Shura had told him. The dot turned green; he fired. The man stumbled as he ran, and fell heavily to the ground.

So easy it was to have taken his life...

Shura shouted down to them that CODA's walkers were going to be moving. Yareta growled to no one in particular, then slid a new magazine into her rifle and stretched out again, firing three shots in quick succession. For his part the Ibizan still found it difficult to work up the nerve — it came only in short bursts. Seeing the big bipedal walkers move helped — watching the sparks flying as they took bullets that could otherwise have been meant for him.

He heard a yelp from off to his left, and turned in time to see a red husky collapse — kicking, crying out in pain before another shot ended her struggles. His broad ears swept back at the sudden, jarring reminder of their precarious situation. Behind them, Shura shouted again, ordering everyone back. Alrukhan exchanged a look with Yareta; she nodded, and they sprinted at the same time for another bit of wreckage — the wing of a crashed airplane, he supposed, from the twisted spars that curved like thee ribs of a great beast.

Alrukhan's view of the battle was narrow — glimpsed down the scope of Shura Narrakja's rifle — but they were clearly losing. They had bought time for the walkers to redeploy, and their rockets rained down with abandon, but even Alrukhan could tell it was not enough. There was too much shelter; it was too easy for even the powerful mechs to accomplish nothing at all. 

At a quick glance he saw a dozen nakathja lying motionless on the ground. Anger flared in his chest; he fired downrange until the magazine was empty and he had to switch — but none of this would bring the fallen back to life. Should've run, he thought to himself, and could not be certain that he didn't believe it. But what were they doing of any worth?

"Take cover!" The shout from behind came in Nakath, and Alrukhan saw Yareta drop out of the corner of his eye. He took his cue from her, shielding his head with his paws moments before a deafening boom rocked them — then the ground seemed to shake, and he looked between his fingers to see an Alliance mech skidding across the ground. Smoke was pouring from the heatsink on its side. Another rocket struck it, showering the earth around with sparks that met sizzling ends in the damp ground.

A hatch on the vehicle's side opened; a man pulled himself halfway out — then jerked and fell to the side, his blood running freely down the mech's stained white hull. The crew, he realized, was trapped. Shura was calling for them to retreat again. Alrukhan's ears splayed. Before he knew what he was doing he left cover and sprinted for the downed mech, so quickly that he had to put his paw out to bring himself to a halt.

The first man to escape was still moving — the wound, Alrukhan judged, was probably fatal, but who knew? He wrapped strong arms around the soldier, pulling him from the walker and setting him carefully down. Then he tugged the hatch open — heavy, unwieldy against gravity. Alarms blared from the opened cockpit. "Let's go," he shouted — smoke was starting to burn his nose, and he could see flickers of fire licking at the cabin from within. 

A hazy figure stood, swaying drunkenly; Alrukhan held out his paw, gripping their arm and pulling them out. They hit the ground, getting up on shaky legs. "One more — Sergeant Fiedler's still in there." Between the two of them they hauled the big man out, and Alrukhan looked towards the base. 

Most of the Enlightened had already retreated again, Yareta included. "We have to move," he said. When they didn't react, he bent to pick up the injured human, taking him by the shoulders. Then Fiedler seemed to understand, lifting the man's legs. They ran awkwardly, stumbling over the churned earth.

Cover, they needed cover. A rocket from the battle weeks before had ripped a crater from the ground, and he could see some of the nakathja already manning it. Sixty meters. Fifty. Forty. The earth was starting to kick up in spurts of mud before him. The wounded man proved to be a heavy burden. Thirty meters. Twenty. 

Something punched him hard from behind. He pitched forward, his muzzle slamming into the dirt so that he inhaled it, muzzle filling with the rich scent of the soil. He tried to get up, but his legs didn't seem to be obeying him. He could feel nothing for an aching few seconds — then a wave of raw, white-hot agony struck him, and he gasped aloud. 

"Up — c'mon," Fiedler grunted, and when Alrukhan couldn't get back to his feet the big human seized him by the arm, hauling him up. The Ibizan heard the sound of the impacts before he felt them — Fiedler let go, tumbling, and the two of them fell back to the earth. He'd landed on his back. A moment of pain. Then nothing. 

Warmth. An inexplicable calm. Now he could see the sky — bright. Clean. The clouds were going fuzzy. Shadows shrouded the edges of his vision, but the sky... the sky... there was freedom there, an endless universe, stretching out into forever and all its promises...

It was the most brilliant, beautiful blue. 

*

Corinna could only tell what was happening to the east through her radio, and sporadically at best. She heard the name Shaka, and couldn't help the smile that crossed her muzzle. The net had carried a rumor that the moreaus had fled — she thought that out of character. Perhaps they would not be enough to salvage the western front, but she had seen them fight before...

Their own situation was worsening by the minute. She had contact with only four other mechs from a platoon of eight. Hildr was lost. Hati was lost. Skoll was lost. Jo Russ, the quiet husky who piloted Kara, was still in the fight — but Sergeant Russ had reported that half of her targeting systems were offline, and the mech was running out of ammunition. 

Ellie Bishop's command mech was also disabled, although Bishop herself seemed to be unharmed. Whether that would be the case for long, Corinna had no idea. "Lasers," Suresh called out — even he was starting to lose his ordinarily unwavering calm. "Left eleven, two kilometers. Being ranged by recoilless, I believe... move quick, Red."

"I'm trying," the cougar snapped. "Bester, left ten for azimuth adjustment. Thank you. Firing!"

They could no longer drop the mech into its fire-ready crouch — any time they did, the infantry pounced. Without the added stabilization, though, their Rooijakkals bucked heavily — Stennis's call was their warning to hold on to something — and every shot jostled the targeting scanners out of alignment. 

It was an accurate hit, at least; the splashes of light blossomed on her map, and even if they hadn't killed their targets it was enough to quiet the incessant complaining of the threat-detection alarms. But infantrymen that had been detected at four kilometers were now barely one and a half away. Close enough in, even their light weapons could do damage — disabling the Jackal's vulnerable heatsink, or the exposed machinery of the rocket launcher.

And there were other problems. "Cortana, this is Calu. Four rounds left. Six rockets. I need rearming but we're pinned down. Over."

It was hard to keep track of where everyone was without TacNet; her map suggested Szanto's mech was forty meters to their right, shielding itself in a shallow curve of the road that led north. They did have a rearming truck, at least in theory — but it was back behind the lines, and leaving cover would expose Szanto's mech. "Bester, bring us forward until we can see down the slope — Stennis, prepare to lay down covering fire."

"Right," the cougar grunted. "I'm on it."

"Calu, this is Cortana, we'll cover you — there's another valley back behind me. Make that and you should be okay most of the way back to the rearming point. Over."

She watched Szanto's Rooijakkals get up — then a bright glint from the corner of her screen, spiraling in an arc that was almost graceful. The missile struck in slow motion, just beneath the mech's heatsink. The shiny metal blades splintered as the heatsink shattered upwards, catching the light of a startlingly clear sky. Corinna could hear the thunder of the explosion even through their own hull. "This is Calu — we're hit! Mayday, mayday —"

Another impact — and then a brilliant flash as the rocket launcher exploded, and what was left of ninety tons of metal and glass and once-living beings rattled against their window. The wipers brushed the debris into dingy afterthoughts at the edges of the glass. Her finger was still on the control for her microphone, the order to bail out left unspoken. A few quick gasps. "Suresh — the hell?"

"Tracking it, tracking it —"

"Check left — we're taking fire," Bester shouted, jerking his controls so the Rooijakkals stumbled backwards, feeling blindly for cover. 

"Roger — fuck! Left nine, four hundred meters!"

Four hundred? Directly off their port side? In a sudden panic, it took Corinna two tries to spin the map around so that she could take a look. They had been flanked — at least a platoon's worth, racing up through what remained of the forest to spring at their vulnerable flanks. But then — there had to be more behind them. And if that was true, then the Kingdom could bring their two fronts together — pushing right through the gaping hole in her company's lines. "Get back! Get back! All units, displace!" 

"Bearing 290. 370 meters. Red — rockets — fuck, fire anything!"

She heard the screaming of the missiles rippling from the launcher — HE, smoke, whatever the cougar had left. The thylacine grabbed for the radio again, panting. No. Calm. Panic's contagious. They had drilled that into her. "Shiloh, this is Cortana." A beat. A swallow. Catch your breath. "Fire for effect, over."

"Cortana, this is Shiloh, fire for effect, out."

"Shiloh, grid whiskey golf 5394, 4301. Over."

"Whiskey golf 5394, 4301. Out."

Bester's evasive maneuvers were keeping the Rooijakkals unsteady — but alive. She grabbed for a handhold with one paw, using the other to manipulate her map. "Final protective fire, attitude 5240. Danger close. Over." The mortars had to be overwhelmed with orders — she needed the call for final protective fire to give her priority. Her three remaining walkers were edging back towards the relative safety of their final defensive line.

"Splash, out."

A few seconds later, the first of the mortar rounds landed with a coughing thump! Others followed, eight in all, falling in a pattern roughly along the line she had asked for. "Good hits," Suresh called. "That's the right area, at least."

Close enough. "Shiloh, this is Cortana. Repeat!"

*

They were retreating, everywhere. The bluff he had originally picked no longer commanded a sufficiently protected position, and he had pulled back to join First Sergeant Eisenberg over a hastily erected table, with the holographic overview of the battle flickering above it. Markers for the known enemy positions were multiplying. His. on the other hand, did not seem to be so inclined.

And now it seemed that his company was being encircled. Miller had reported a call for covering artillery fire, which seemed to have come from the platoon sergeant — Lieutenant Bishop's command mech was nowhere to be seen on his map. Hattie Parker was dead, too. They should've had sixteen Rooijakkals, between the two platoons: he counted six — then one of the markers abruptly switched off. Signal lost: SUNBIRD (2-2-3), the display flashed. SFC Jack Kato was now the only person left from the whole of 2nd platoon.

His two reserve units had arrived, and were already taking losses — the fresh units had been enough to briefly stem the Kingdom's advance, but it was now painfully clear that the big guns of the Jackals were completely ineffective against well-dispersed, scattered infantrymen. Signal lost: TEMPLE (1-1-2). Signal lost: CROCKETT (4-1-2).

"This little slope that cuts up here," Tindall pointed. "We didn't see that in the survey. If we move back to the final line, we have no way to hit anybody west of the road until they come over the crest of it."

"Too close for comfort?" Wayne asked.

"That close in? Their goddamned grenade launchers'll do damage, let alone those fucking recoilless bastards they're hitting us with. We either need to take that slope back or pull all the way inside the perimeter."

"Retreat and they've got a clear path to start hitting Vallis's northern flank."

Vallis was doing marginally better, courtesy of the reappearance of Alrukhan's moreaus — they were not well-trained, but their light weaponry could put down a greater volume of fire, and that seemed to have checked the aspirations of whatever Sanganese crime lord was organizing the assault.

He was not happy to see that they had broken out of custody, but there was something to be said for pragmatism: they had saved Carignan's company, after all. And perhaps... "Miller, get me Alrukhan. The head of the, uh, the new dogs."

"Yes, sir. Shaka 6, this is Sundown. Need to speak to actual. Over." Tindall could see Miller's ears flick with the sound of explosions heard through the headset, a few seconds before they rolled over the men gathered around the command hologram. "Ah? Ku — ku, kihad — kihad ghanrukha na Anga — yassuja! English, do you speak it? Rag? Kihad, kalaksa... Ja eda." The transformation had been rapid and complete, but when the collie looked up and spoke again it was in perfect English. "He's dead. You want the new commander now?"

Nothing shocked him anymore; Tindall merely nodded. "Yes." 

"Shura Narrakja speaking," the radio growled. It was hard to tell where the static ended and the crackle of machine gun fire began.

"This is Captain Tindall. Sitrep. Over."

"Holding position. Fifteen dead. Ten wounded perhaps. Råk nan ratag." Shura spoke curtly, in short bursts like his rifle, never more than three words at a time. "Ammunition good. Over."

"Our position is going to be compromised in the north. I want you to shift a platoon to cover that approach while we dig in. Over."

"One platoon. Nan'tag. Ten minutes. Out."

Tindall handed back the radio. "What did he say? You speak their language, right?"

"Badly, sir," Miller admitted. "Nan'tag is short for råk nan ratag. It means, ah, 'we will be able to do it.' It's an old nakath independence slogan."

Optimism. Well, they could use some of that. He ordered Lieutenant White, commander of the most undamaged platoon, to position her mechs on the hill as soon as Shura's promised men arrived. He glanced at his watch: little more than an hour and a half had passed since the exchange of the first shots. How much longer could they hold out? An hour or two, perhaps. Once they had been forced back inside the base perimeter, it was over. The mechs were useless at short range, and none of them were trained in close-quarters combat.

White lost one mech destroyed and another disabled in trying to take her objective. Five minutes later, two more had been knocked out. There weren't enough of them to cover all the possible angles, and he had nothing left to reinforce her. "Wayne, we're going to need —"

Warrant Officer Curtis spoke up from behind the screen of his computer — a portable unit, patched into the sensors of the Swartrenoster in whose shade they rested. "Sir?" Tindall had been speaking too quietly for Jamal to hear; the interruption had been unintentional, and Arnie nodded for him to continue. "Signals, sir."

What now? "Report."

"EM has it as broad-spectrum. I've got... comm traffic, search radars..."

"Their tanks?" Alrukhan had said that the Kingdom had managed to track down some armored units. Obsolete as they were, he no longer had the strength to resist them.

"No, sir. It's atmospheric."

Arnie swallowed heavily. What else had Alrukhan said? They had tried to send a message back to their headquarters, and a Kingdom repeater had picked it up. "Don't keep me hanging, here, Mr. Curtis." A cloud was beginning to swell on his holographic map, covering the top in an ominous red.

"Thirty... forty... good god. Tally a hundred and thirty plus, sir. High atmospheric and descending."

"Who are they?"

Curtis tapped at his computer, sighed deeply, and tried again. Finally he shook his head. "They're broadcasting Kingdom IFF codes, sir."

"Sir, we're being hailed," Miller added. 

Eisenberg looked at the captain. "You know any Sangan languages?"

Tindall unholstered his sidearm, drew a magazine from his pocket, and slammed it home with a metallic snick. "This count? Put it through, specialist." Setting his jaw, the man took a deep breath. "This is Captain Arnold Tindall, Commander, Alliance Forces Jericho."

On the holographic map, the Kingdom aerial fleet had descended lower — they were perhaps thirty kilometers away, falling through the atmosphere. He had time, an endless second, to consider their response. Another imperious demand for his surrender. The threat of annihilation. Maybe only silence, and Curtis warning him of incoming missiles. Either way, whatever it had come to, he was ready. Damn the odds, they —

"Captain Tindall, this is Major General Waverly, 13th Orbital."

For several seconds, he couldn't speak at all. Then: "Au — authenticate that. Miller — damn it, authenticate that."

The collie, too, seemed unable to spur himself into action. His fingers moved erratically, and he sounded as though he couldn't believe his own words. "It's... c-confirmed, sir. Traffic is encrypted with a CODA handshake. Sir."

Tindall tried to holster his gun. His hand was shaking; it took four tries before he could find the right angle. "Welcome to Jericho, sir."

"How're you doing down there, son? I need to put a division in your neighborhood, and it looks like you're giving me a hot LZ. That right?"

"Yes, sir. We're under heavy attack from the north and north-west. Two thousand infantry, maybe more."

Waverly's voice was calm — the sort of reassurance that could only come from someone a dozen kilometers above the situation on the ground. "I've got two attack battalions inbound on support. That's forty-eight Griffons. You tell me where to hit, son, and we've got your back."

"Smoke," Eisenberg said quickly — Tindall was still not quite able to process what was happening. Wayne seemed to pick up on this; he repeated himself more firmly. "Smoke and IR; everybody should have those. Pull the auxiliaries in with the Jackals and let 'em take cover."

"Ah — right." His radioman's eyes were still wide; it took a moment for the collie to switch Tindall into the right net. "All units, this is Captain Tindall. We have air support inbound hot. You mark your positions with smoke and IR strobes right fucking now." There were dots, hanging far above them. Bright, burning down through the atmosphere. They danced — and as he watched some of them splintered, streaking down for him like shooting stars. 

The Griffons pulled up at the last possible second, screaming over the base with a sonic boom that was as deafening as it was deliriously, magically heartening. Four — eight — a dozen of them, their angular wings ablaze with rocket fire. Then a dozen more. The flag snapped crisply in the wake of their passage.

The other points of light swelled larger, resolving themselves into the fat, egg-shaped Strix dropships favored by the espatier. They were, Tindall realized with perfect, giddy clarity, not taking any incoming fire. Most of them seemed to be headed for the plains to their west, now littered with wreckage. One, though, touched down lightly forty meters away. Steam curled from the rounded nacelles as the engine died in a sighing whine. 

The door opened.

General Waverly's fatigues made him look like a smaller version of the dropship — bulky, solid; reassuring. A bushy grey mustache made him look vaguely grandfatherly. Arnold snapped to attention by reflex. He was beaten, disheveled. Much of his hair had thinned; his clothes were stained with dirt, and he knew his eyes were dampening with tears. But he saluted, and Waverly returned it without a moment of pause or disdain. Then he nodded, crisply; his eyes spoke to profound understanding, and his voice was soft.

"At ease, captain."

It was hard; everything was hard. Tindall lowered his hand. "I — I don't... where did you come from, sir?"

He couldn't help thinking of their own landing — the way Captain Erwin Carabi had looked, when Tindall's men relieved the siege of the spaceport. Then another thought struck him: Carabi was dead now; he had died in the bombardment. More had perished in only the last few hours. "Bring your men in and we can go over this. Let me handle what's left, captain."

Once he had given the order to Miller, Tindall turned back to the general. "I thought we'd been abandoned."

"You were. CODA deprioritized this whole sector. We picked up a distress call from you guys two weeks ago, but the war hasn't been going so well, captain. Can't help everyone."

"Then what... what happened?"

"Kingdom picked up on it, too. We heard through our sources that they were putting together a big expeditionary force to take back this place. That was enough to convince the Marathi that Jericho was worth something. They don't have ground forces, but their ships are powerful enough — we ambushed the Kingdom fleet two days ago, about an AU from here."

It was something of a mixed ending — to know that his call for help had been ignored except by the exact wrong people. "And then landed. In the nick of time."

"Why do you think they chose to attack when they did? We've been broadcasting the right IFF codes for a week now. Only way to get through the minefield these guys set up in orbit. That's another advantage of our new alliance — the Marathi did all the technology work behind the net. Made our jobs a lot easier."

Small favors. Waverly left him to get back to the business of mopping up, and Tindall made his way back to the table — threading between more people, now, marines in fresh uniforms, with clean faces. Wayne was bent over the holographic map, and on the computer next to him Tindall could see what was unmistakably a casualty report. "Well, sergeant?"

Eighteen dead, ten wounded. Forty-seven missing. Well over half the company was a casualty of some kind. Vallis was still tabulating his numbers, but they had no reason to believe that it would be any better once those figures were in. When he reported his losses to the general, Waverly shook his head. "Forty-seven? We need to get that number down fast, captain."

"Yes, sir."

"Colonel Franks!" 

Presently Lieutenant Colonel Franks joined them. Handsome and youthful, his golden hair was swept back rakishly — Tindall felt that he had met the man before, though he could no longer place it anywhere but in the distant, muddied past that was everything before Jericho. "Sir?"

"A third of this company is missing. Get 'em back. We don't leave people out there."

Franks saluted, and then brought his wristband communicator up. "Kenai 6, this is Magic actual. We need to organize recovery operations to our north, effective immediately. Get your chalks on the ground, and let's go. Magic out."

*

"Nobody's shooting," Suresh reported. "It's quiet." So was he; the fennec's subdued voice gave the impression of one who did not want to disturb a fragile dream.

"Nobody's shooting at us, you mean," Bester pointed out, far less reserved. They could still hear the distant sound of explosions, and if she turned her radio to listen to the air control channel the calls for fire came quick and regular. The fresh soldiers were bringing the Griffons in on anything that moved. 

Corinna's map suddenly flashed with a new message. She tilted her head. "Bloody hell — UDL's back online. We're getting orders. Rallying point is... forward? The 6th CRB is putting together a collection point four hundred meters ahead of us."

Suresh had received the order on his map, as well; he zoomed in for a closer look, and then nodded. "Back at our original line. Well, we're clear all the way down there, Bester, if you want."

"Stripes?"

She nodded her assent, and switched her radio to the guard channel. "Kia ora, this is Cortana. All units, we've established a rallying point, grid whiskey golf 536, 434. Move there, and wait for further orders."

They were the first to arrive; the threat picture was minimal, but Suresh eyed his computer like a hawk — like all of them, the fennec was no longer given to trusting in fate. A few minutes later, the mech Kara trudged up: its left heatsink was gone, and most of the sensor antennas looked to have been smashed beyond repair. One of the guns hung limply, its hydraulics destroyed.

Sergeant Todd Watts had taken over for her as Sigrun, leading the Valkyrie section, and that mech approached as well. She was gratified to see that her old namesake had made it through unscathed — she didn't know Watts, nor the moreaus that served under him, but any survivors were a good sign. There did not seem to be many more forthcoming: their three Rooijakkals were the only ones from the platoon that were still mobile. 

Ten minutes later the first battered shape appeared on foot. Corinna opened the hatch of the Jackal and dropped to the ground, walking over to investigate, and to lend the limping figure a hand. Specialist Riya, a heavyset raccoon who was one of the best marksmen in the company, smiled wanly to her. "Hey, sergeant..."

"Hildr?"

"Took three rounds all at once and went spinning. Cord's dead. Bob can't move. Think it's his spine; we need help getting him out. Here's where we were..."

Not a good start; she took the small locator badge Riya offered, tapping it against her computer to save the coordinates. "And you? Are you alright?" 

The raccoon's right foot had been bandaged quickly, the white gauze stained with blood and dirt. "Shrapnel. Two of my toes are still attached..." He shrugged, and it seemed the reality had not quite settled in for him. "Couldn't find the others, I guess."

Jo Russ and her crew had abandoned Kara, and were organizing what first aid supplies they had available. Riya said that he wanted to return to Silverberg, but she helped him over to get his foot looked at first. When she turned there were more people approaching, shambling, stained with soot and grime. Warrant Officer Dan Machuca and a tall black-furred husky, followed by another moreau. Machuca and the husky carried another human between them.

"She alright, sir?" the thylacine asked — Ellie Bishop's head had been hastily bandaged, and it was impossible to tell the extent of her injuries.

"She will be, I think. Our mech got rolled and she took a nice thump to the head. We got out before it started burning — what's going on? Are we surrendering?"

"No, sir. Reinforcements. We've been asked to marshal here until we get new orders."

Machuca nodded, and left her with the husky, who tilted her head inquisitively. "You know how bad it is, yet, Sergeant Benjamin?"

Corinna vaguely recalled her as having some long Nakath name; her nametag read "DAMON." "Valkyries did okay. Cordie bought it, but I'm still standing and so's Jo Russ. The wolves... that whole section's a mess. I watched Hati go up, and Calu. Skoll's going to be a lost cause, too."

"Don't count us out," someone said curtly. She turned to find Astra — the muskrat's hard-edged face looked weary, but she managed a grim smile. "Not yet, anyway." 

"Private; specialist," Corinna nodded to Astra and her companion, the white-furred shepherd Chanatja. "Your driver..."

"Ajay's dead," Chanatja said flatly. "We had to leave him in the mech. Szanto, too, you said?" His eyes were the most expressive part of him; his muzzle did not move, only his dark gaze revealed him to be alive at all.

"Yeah. Sorry, mate. I know you were gettin' on okay."

The two proved to be the last of them. Private Cord, Sergeant Szanto, Sergeant Foley, Specialist Lester, Private Bharati, Sergeant Ajay, Sergeant Raghava, Specialist Kiri, and Private Boucher were dead. She tallied the names with a sigh, and waited for their relief.

It came in the form of a truck. The Tarvos pulled to a halt, hoverdrive humming softly. She thought back to sitting in a hangar at Fort Garrison, listening to Corporal Avalos tell her how lucky she was to be out of the action. She thought, too, of how she'd rolled her eyes at the very thought — so different from the reasons she'd first enlisted.

The rear hatch of the Tarvos opened, and two marines jumped from it — remarkably flexible in their powered armor. The shorter of them had a captain's bars on the side of their helmet; Corinna stepped forward, and raised her paw in a salute. "At ease," the captain said, voice amplified through a closed helmet. "Who's in charge here?"

Corinna glanced to Machuca, who was tending to Lieutenant Bishop; he shook his head. "I am, sir. This is 3rd Platoon, A Company, 2nd of the 49th." What's left of them.

The marine regarded her for several long seconds. "Sergeant Benjamin?"

"Yes, sir."

The captain grabbed for the edge of their helmet, pulling it off carefully. She was a grey-furred moreau, with fuzzy ears that never quite seemed to come all the way up, and piercing blue eyes. "Hello, Corinna," Runshana smiled. "I wish I was meeting you again under better circumstances."

The thylacine's muzzle was open; her ears splayed. She took the armored hand that was offered, and shook it softly. "It... it's good to see you anyway, sir."

"Third platoon's accounted for?"

"Yes, sir. Nine dead, five wounded — one critically. We need a medic." She unclipped the computer from her belt and handed it over. "This was their last known position."

Runshana nodded decisively. "We'll take care of it." She pulled the headset from her helmet, clipping it to her ear. "Magic, this is Kenai 6 actual. I've established contact with 3rd Platoon. We have wounded requiring evacuation. Over."

"Magic actual. Kenai 6, you want to track down mike-victor, over?"

The captain paused, and muted the line. "MVSH, or is this more serious?" The Medical Vehicle, Standard, Hover was a light hoverdyne with a small-scale surgery — but if Silverberg truly had a broken back, they wouldn't be able to help. The thylacine shook her head. "Kenai 6. Ah, negative on the Mush, Magic. I want to kick this up a notch. If Howe hasn't locked it down, I want a medical Strix spun up. We can get the critical cases to orbit on the next cycle. Over."

"Magic. Your call, captain. Out."

Corinna felt reassured by the moreau's presence; everything the captain did was precise and purposeful. "Lieutenant," she waved one of the other marines over. "Take your platoon and move here, ASAP. Area ought to be secure. If it is, call in Dustoff on my authority immediately. And keep your radio open." She patted him on the shoulder, and as he jogged off, the moreau turned to Corinna with a smile. "C'mon. Let's get your men back home."