Chapter Five
YLOGH, BD+56 2966 TWO (“TURKH’SAAR”)
The scout car’s engine roared as the vehicle broke from the treeline. The sudden rush of wind—and sudden possibility of swift death—were exhilarating, if not exactly for the best reasons. But a Warrior lived to embrace risk and Yaargraukh reached out to it.
“Shall I signal the others to follow as they may?” the radio-bearer shouted above the howling engine and whipping wind.
“No, Ezzraamar,” Yaargraukh shouted back, using his adjutant’s given name since they were facing death together, now. “They are to halt at the treeline and spread out. Fifty meters separation at least. Up to one hundred, if possible. Driver, how are you called?”
“Kaazhkul, Flag Leader.”
“Evasive action, Kaazhkul. A shallow serpentine. No more than five seconds between turns, and never the same interval twice in a row. Execute.”
Kaazhkul did as ordered.
Up ahead, Ylogh seemed to rise up out of the plain before them. Unlike the human settlements Yaargraukh had seen during the invasion of Earth—from the smallest Indonesian kempang to the sprawling warrens and lofty towers of Jakarta—most Hkh’Rkh habitation was below ground. However, on Turkh’saar, it was necessarily dug into the side of rock. Most of the flora, the vast majority of which reproduced asexually and was therefore biochemically aggressive in protecting its ground, transmitted much of its irritation through the soil into which it decomposed, making earthen cotes painful to both skin and lungs.
But now, the rock-cut warrens were also traps; they lacked escape tunnels, which were much easier to dig in typical soil. So the Unhonored of Turkh’saar had no way to retreat or even defend multiple fall-back positions, which often gave Warriors enough time to effect a rescue.
But Ylogh was no longer just a clancote; it was evolving into a town. Whereas the Hkh’Rkh dug their dwellings into slopes or hills or cliffs, larger businesses and activities were conducted in open air. Consequently, the workshops, warehouses, stores, and refectories of Ylogh had grown up into a loose tangle of buildings among which Warriors might hide, and from which they might strike.
Yaargraukh snapped his dioptiscope back down, swept the horizon again. No movement. No exhaust plumes, either, although that was hardly a definitive observation: many of the human rotary-wings were relatively quiet when they were hovering or if they were grounded in a clearing, waiting for a call to action. But so far, they had not appeared and there were only three hundred meters remaining between Yaargraukh’s command car and the outskirts of Ylogh.
Lying athwart their path, one of Second Troop’s APCs guttered and smoked: a blackened shell with several carbonized corpses hanging out the back hatch. A ragged hole in the right side of the vehicle was mute testimony to where a human antiarmor missile had struck it. “Steer closer to it, on the southern side,” Yaargraukh ordered the driver.
“I obey, Scion.”
The driver demonstrated that he understood tactical subtext of Yaargraukh’s command. Angling out of a serpentine swerve, he put the APC’s plume of black smoke between the scout car and the northeast horizon: the area from which the missile had apparently been launched.
Yaargraukh scrutinized the tops of the clusterwoods lining that part of the horizon: no movement.
“One hundred meters,” announced Ezzraamar. He almost sounded calm.
At this range, it was clear that Ylogh’s buildings had been hit by a second deluge of small arms fire, most of it ominously grouped around windows of the sturdier buildings. The other vehicles of Second Troop smoldered alongside those structures, their crews hanging out of the hatches or slumped over their pintle-mounted machine guns. They had done all that conventional tactics would have told them: snug up against buildings for both concealment and cover, use dismounted observers to keep apprised of the approach of enemy craft and then direct fire.
But if they had inflicted any losses upon the humans, there was no sign of it. The plains were free of rotary-wing wreckage. But that was fairly typical of these raids. Even the humans’ outdated rockets had admirable range and destructive power, and their pilots and gunners were surprisingly skilled. They had also made a careful study of Hkh’Rkh heavy weapons and, after one or two losses, discovered how to stay well beyond their effective range until they were silenced by those rockets.
But most of the Warriors had apparently dismounted before or during the attack; although some of them lay sprawled in the streets, they accounted for less than half of the Troop. Unfortunately, there was no way of knowing how many more had been killed returning fire from the various bullet-riddled building hardpoints, or who were hiding in the shadows, incapacitated by their wounds.
The scout car swerved around the corpse of a Warrior sprawled near the main refectory’s aquaculture trough and entered the wide, meandering streets. Yaargraukh, knowing the layout, pointed the driver toward a storage shed. “There. Slow as you approach it.”
The driver sped across the dusty expanse that was Ylogh’s pitiable equivalent of a town square, then braked as he eased off the gas. As the car’s speed dropped beneath ten kilometers per hour, Yaargraukh leapt off, hit the ground running, reached the shed, and threw open the doors a moment before the vehicle swerved inside.
Yaargraukh closed the doors, giving orders without looking at the two Warriors. “Kaazhkul, seek out and determine Second Troop’s remaining numbers, equipment, ammunition, and positions. Return with the senior surviving Warrior to make your report. Ezzraamar, dismount the radio; you are on me.”
Shouldering the transceiver, Ezzraamar followed his superior out the smaller, south-facing door of the shed. Yaargraukh quickly checked his surroundings, pointed to a cinder-block building that had a half-finished second floor. It did not look as though it had been a primary target, although stray rounds had left a drunken trail of pockmarks climbing up its western wall. In combat crouches, they slunk across the street to the structure, found the stairs, crept up to the roof. Yaargraukh positioned them where they could observe Kaazhkul’s progress.
No sooner had they found a place to hunker down and get a better view of the town’s defensible positions—of which there were few—than the radio hummed. Ezzraamar put a hand up to cover and better listen to his earbud, answered into the linked neckcom, “We are, Fist. He is here by the radio.” He held out the handset toward Yaargraukh slowly, the retractile folds around his eyes wrinkling in regret and apology.
Yaargraukh, amused, let his serpentine black tongue lick out briefly before taking the handset and speaking. “I attend, Fist Jrekhalkar.”
“You have reached Ylogh?”
“I have. Given what we have seen thus far, it is my intent to wait out the humans. As I have indicated in all my reports, they avoid night attacks, probably because they lack or have few night-vision systems. The other vehicles of First Troop are in dispersed formation at the edge of the treeline to provide cover fire. Once night falls, they should be able to safely rejoin us here in—”
“Am I to understand that only you and the crew of your scout car are in Ylogh presently?”
“That is correct, Fist.”
“I ordered a general advance.”
“You did—in accordance with doctrine. Which stipulates that if possible, a recon element is to assess and report prior to committing the main body of the unit. Since the other vehicles of the Troop were still several minutes off, that reconnaissance role fell to my command car.”
During the long pause that followed, Yaargraukh imagined Jrekhalkar fuming beside the radio in his command center back in Iarzut’thruk. “Your willful misinterpretation of my order is quite evident, Flag Leader, and shall figure in my determination of your future here on Turkh’saar. However, for now, you will immediately order the balance of First Troop to reinforce the town and reassure its people.”
Yaargraukh felt his eyes retract slightly. “With respect, Fist, I must ask: will it reassure the people if First Troop is destroyed trying to make its way across open ground?”
“Your polite speech does not conceal your intolerable insolence. Your Warriors would be there now had you not disobeyed my order—”
“Again, with respect, I interpreted that order differently than you might have intended, Fist.” “Interpreted” it according to standard practice and official doctrine, you imbecile.
“You will not interrupt me again, Flag Leader. However, your disobedience did prove what you evidently hoped it would: that the enemy is no longer in the area.”
By the generative polyps of my dead Sires—! “I shall endeavor to explain my purposes more clearly, Fist.” Since you are clearly too dungwitted to understand basic military practice. “Determining whether the enemy is or is not still in the area of operations was not what I hoped to ascertain by crossing the plain to Ylogh. Rather, having no radio contact with the surviving defenders, it was imperative that I learn more about the numbers, equipment, and tactics employed by the attackers during our absence. It was also essential that we determine how many of Second Troop remain combat effective, how many support weapons remained operational in the buildings of the settlement, and if any hardened positions had been established. Taken together, that determines the base of fire we may provide to cover the APCs of First Troop when they eventually cross the open ground.
“I further reasoned that the humans—if they are still nearby—would not reveal themselves to eliminate just one scout car. On the other hand, if they did, that would have been a small price to pay to locate the enemy and determine the response of the rest of First Troop. That I was not fired upon proves only one thing: if the humans are still out there, they are waiting for better targets.” Or they are after some entirely different objective. Which eludes me. Because, had they wanted to destroy both Troops, they would have ambushed us outright, not played this unnecessary back-and-forth baiting game. Something is still not right—but this st’kraag-wit will not understand the potential significance of such an anomaly, nor do I have the time to educate him enough to see it. If that is even possible.
Jrekhalkar was proving himself to be exactly what Yaargraukh believed him to be: myopic and stubborn. “You prate about the humans’ actions as if they conceal a careful, mysterious strategy. What nonsense. It is perfectly clear what their two objectives are.”
And of course you’re going to tell me.
Which is exactly what Jrekhalkar did. “Firstly, they mean to slaughter our people, destroy the town, and seize as many of its goods as they can. Secondly, they are trying to draw you into an ambush.”
“Our two Troops hardly seem worth the effort of—”
“You are not listening, Flag Leader. I said they are after you. Personally.”
That gave Yaargraukh pause; it was an odd suggestion, but, to Jrekhalkar’s credit, it wasn’t the product of blind conventionality. For all his limitations, was it possible that the Fist had perceived something in the human attacks that Yaargraukh himself had missed? “How would they even know of me, personally, Fist?”
“Not by name, of course. But by activity? You have been chasing after them for weeks, trying to learn more about them, hoping even—Sires forbid!—to talk to them. Perhaps they have discerned that. Perhaps they simply believe you are trying to gather tactical intelligence on them. Either way, they are after you. Why else would they draw off so quickly after the first attack on Ylogh, where they did almost no damage and were careful not to eliminate its long-range radio—until after it had sent a summons for help?”
“This is an interesting hypothesis, Fist, but again, why would they want to kill me? If, as you have long averred, the humans care for nothing except our destruction, and have no tactics other than wanton slaughter, why would they change their course of action simply because one Hkh’Rkh became interested in talking to them, or analyzing their intents and methods? Logically, that would not concern them.” Unless, of course, they perceived my attempt to gain intelligence on them as a threat. And so they decided to mount a counterintelligence strike to eliminate the one Hkh’Rkh that might evolve new tactics against them. Whom they extrapolated was not present during their second attack on Ylogh, since there were no attempts to contact them when they reapproached…
Jrekhalkar was becoming both angry and impatient. “I do not have the time to consider answers to these imponderables. These humans are nothing more than amoral marauders. They do not wish to talk to you; they merely wish to kill you. Why would you expect their actions to be consistent or logical? As you yourself have said, they are perverse and cruel. They target females and young in their own wars, use them as hostages, as shields, as bearers of suicide bombs. Their species is twisted, sick to the core, brutally insane by its very nature.”
Yaargraukh felt a vague sense of disappointment. Whatever spark of insight Jrekhalkar had used to shed a new light upon the inscrutable intents of the humans’ current attack was now smothered beneath his bigoted rage. “I agree that there is no point to such a discussion at this time, Fist.” He detected movement down in the street; Kaazhkul was returning with an officer in tow. He waved to them as he concluded, “I shall receive a report on the town’s defenses and circumstances within the minute. I shall recontact you shortly with a report and my recommendations.”
“Do not keep me waiting, Flag Leader.” The line cut out abruptly.
Moments later, Kaazhkul emerged from the partially walled staircase, a young, weary-looking squad leader with him. “He wishes the honor of making the report to his superior,” Kaazhkul muttered from deep in his thorax; it was a sympathetic, even regretful sound. There was indeed something poignant about this inexperienced militia officer doggedly following protocol.
“Report, Squad Leader,” Yaargraukh said with a full nod of acknowledgement.
The young officer listed the remaining Warriors; there were twenty-three, fifteen of whom were combat-effective. With the exception of a single AA missile, their only remaining weapons were personal arms. They still had ample ammunition. The enemy hadn’t come close enough to be taken under effective fire, except with the now-destroyed heavy weapons. Consequently, they no longer had much decisive use for the hardpoints they had reinforced with rubble and construction materials.
Yaargraukh listened without interrupting, noticed that the sun was now well into its descent toward the horizon. In just four hours, their best ally—night—would end the engagement. He gazed at the young officer frankly. “Tell me: did they land troops?”
“Scion?”
“Did any of the human rotary-wings approach and deploy troops?”
“Not in Ylogh, Flag Leader.”
Yaargraukh sighed. Patience, with this one. “I am not just asking about here in town. I am talking about any place that you had under observation.” With a sweep of his left arm, he gestured at the plains surrounding Ylogh.
“I…we cannot be sure, Flag Leader. The fighting was intense here among the buildings, and we were focused on the enemy’s approach from the north.”
“Did you not have observation posts watching the other directions?”
“We had one, Scion. In the high gantry of the water tower, but—” His eyes strayed to the west. Yaargraukh followed them, saw the water tower—or rather, what was left of it. The top of the structure was a blackened ruin of twisted steel. If the observers there ever sent reports, they had been lost in the same infernos which had killed the radio operators that would have received them in the now-gutted APCs.
Ezzraamar glanced up. “Fist is recontacting. He is irate.”
Of course he is. Yaargraukh took the handset. “I have just finished gathering the report.”
“What have you found?”
Yaargraukh told him.
“So, you still have almost three quarters of your Warriors left. And all the heavy weapons from First Troop. You can mount a credible defense. Order your remaining vehicles into the town to take up positions.”
Did he really not understand? “Fist, in four hours we could do so without incurring any risk of further loss. Or, I believe, any risk of further attack.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Fist, the humans could have annihilated Ylogh in either of their first two attacks but did not. I suspect your surmise to be correct: today, they are not motivated by supplies and matériel, but intelligence objectives. Perhaps they do wish to eliminate me, or—”
“Your arrogant self-importance is complicating your perception of what is a very simple matter. The humans wish to destroy Ylogh. They are behaving in a somewhat atypical matter, but whatever the cause of that, it does not change our objective: to defend the town. To do that, the carriers of your First Troop must be in the town itself. Summon them. Immediately. They are ready to move.”
“They—? What?”
“They have remounted their weapons and are ready to cross the open ground. I contacted them myself while you were being briefed on the conditions in Ylogh. Your executive officer, Hshwaarn, provided me with a comprehensive report on his Troop’s readiness.”
Yaargraukh could not help himself; his eyes yanked back tight beneath the long, bony prominence that was his skull. You ordered my XO to give you a lengthy verbal report from his hidden position at the edge of the clustertrees. Because you had to take charge, because you had to meddle with the command of a New Family flag leader who had the luck and gall to serve as a direct advisor to the First Voice of the Patrijuridicate in the last, disastrous war. And because of your combination of arrogance and suppressed jealousy, you’ve now ensured that if our enemies are waiting, and are capable of triangulating our radio transmissions, they had ample time to pinpoint exactly where Hshwaarn and the rest of First Troop is hiding.
Jrekhalkar had tired of waiting for a reply. “You will reinforce the town as ordered.”
“Fist, since the humans are not hastening to secure the town and its supplies, it is unlikely they will press an attack if we wait until the cover of night. We could then regroup and evacuate the Unhonored while it is still dark. We can be back among the major towns of the colony before dawn has—”
“Order your carriers into Ylogh. This is your last warning, Yaargraukh. Repent this craven inability to act.”
“Craven?” Well, you either mean to Challenge me or try me in court. “I do not refuse to act out of fear. I refuse because it is both wrong and profitless to order Warriors to deaths that serve no purpose. Troop One is now at high risk: they have sent strong, persistent radio signals. However, they are still hidden, and if they stay so until—”
The radio-bearer started, pointed at his set. “Scion.”
Yaargraukh glanced over. The light indicating a live connection to Iarzut’thruk was dark. “What has he—?”
“Flag Leader,” the driver began in a tense voice, pointing toward the eastern horizon.
The APCs and second scout car of First Troop were emerging from the clustertrees at high speed, rooster-tails of dust kicking up behind them as they hit the dry flatlands.
“He ordered them himself.” Ezzraamar said it through a gulp deep in his throat.
“Change to tactical, secure channel,” Yaargraukh ordered harshly. “Now!”
His adjutant hastened to comply, nodded after a long moment.
“Hshwaarn?” Yaargraukh shouted.
“Here. What manner of—?”
“No time. These are your instructions for approach and entry into Ylogh. Maintain as much speed as possible while using a limited serpentine. Do not brake as you approach the edge of town; come straight in. Park in the southern lee of buildings—the south-east if you can.”
“What? Why should we—?”
“The humans won’t come out of the open lands to the south, and they won’t have been following behind us as we drove out of the east. We have to expect attack from north, possibly the west. As soon as your carriers stop, the infantry must abandon the vehicles as per evacuation protocols. Crews remain behind long enough to dismount heavy weapons, including launchers. Everyone regroups in the building next to which they parked. But do not stay there; each squad must move to the next building. Keep spreading out. Do not bunch up.”
Out on the plain, the bulky APCs were doing their best to begin an evasive slalom. However, being somewhat top-heavy—a design aspect that was a consequence of Hkh’Rkh body size—they were at risk of spinning out, or worse yet, rolling, if the turns were too abrupt or performed at too high a speed. B carrier, the one to the rear right flank of Hshwaarn’s command vehicle, had popped the security lock off its remote-pintle rocket tube, which was now swinging toward the north—
Slightly to the west of the rocket tube’s protective aimpoint, there was a disturbance above the distant treeline, merely a shimmer at first—before it resolved into what looked like a hovering, upright rectangle. From either side of the rectangle, there was a brief flash and then two pencil thin lines of dense white smoke streaked across the intervening two and a half kilometers, accelerating as they came.
The tactical channel erupted with shouted warnings, azimuth bearings for intercepts. The APCs’ heavy weapons slewed around to concentrate on the barely visible threat vehicle, the B carrier slowing to give a better shot to their missile operator—
One of the two streaking rockets from the strange rotary-wing slammed into the side of B carrier: a sharp explosion, a gout of flame and then smoke rose up. Warriors were abandoning the right-listing vehicle by both the top and rear exits as the other carriers swung around to put their slightly thicker glacis plates toward the enemy aircraft.
But with B carrier disabled, and its missile tube sagging limply in its pintle mount, there was no way for the Hkh’Rkh to effectively counterattack. The fifteen-millimeter machine guns could not reliably reach the odd, narrow rotary-wing, which was already dipping back down behind the trees, a distant hum the only audible signature of its rotors. The big Hkh’Rkh autoweapons certainly had the range, and their impact was legendary, but—manually engaging pop-up targets at twenty-five hundred meters while rolling along in a large-wheeled, hard-suspensioned vehicle? That was the equivalent of trying to hit a small bird flying over your den with a hand-thrown rock; success would ultimately have more to do with luck than skill. Even at full stop, any hit would be a gift from one’s deceased Sires.
But the Warrior reflex to strike back was powerful. To a one, the APCs were braking, their commanders resolved to give their machine gunners stable firing platforms. “No,” Yaargraukh shouted into the handset, “do not stop to engage!” The humans would never come close enough for the fifteen-millimeter machine guns to hit them. The only viable tactical option was the one toward which Hkh’Rkh were instinctually, reflexively opposed: to flee at high speed for the cover of Ylogh. Not all would make it, but some might—and some was better than none. But the carriers had already swerved and slowed to face their now-vanished attacker, machine guns sweeping the horizon. Questions and doubtful grunts started clogging the tactical channel.
“No,” Yaargraukh shouted over them. “You must—”
Whereas the first rotary-wing had emitted only a distant hum as it faded from sight, the next ones were preceded by a monstrous growl—which was appropriate for the two airborne behemoths that came lumbering over the low, well-forested ridge line two kilometers to the northeast. Bulky, slow, brutish, the rotary-wings’ weapons pylons seemed to droop with the weight of their ordnance. Each one fired a rocket from the outermost tip of its starboard pylon.
The APC machine gunners swung their weapons in that direction, the jackhammer sound of their fire commencing even before they were zeroed on the new targets. Outgoing tracers showed the streams of fire arcing low. The gunners began to adjust—
But before they could correct their aimpoint, the human rockets were among them. One struck the front quarter of C carrier, blowing the lead right wheel clean off the chassis and holing the hull beyond it. The other narrowly missed A carrier. Its commander, Hshwaarn, had been bringing it about to lead the rest toward Ylogh, but now it swung over to B carrier, ready to take survivors off as it began to burn fiercely.
Yaargraukh’s cry of warning died in his long, rough throat as each of the immense rotary-wings fired another missile. One struck the middle of A carrier’s deck, just as survivors from B carrier were swarming up on to it. The first explosion was relatively small; evidently an antitank rocket, it entered the vehicle’s troop compartment through the top-opening troop hatch and detonated inside. The burst of smoke and debris obscured the Hkh’Rkh Warriors who had been helping pull the survivors of B carrier up onto the deck.
But even as their silhouettes convulsed within the smoky veils of the first explosion, a blast of flame shot up out of A carrier’s exposed guts. The missile’s HEAT warhead had evidently sliced through the interior deck into the fuel tank. The force of the blast sent the survivors of B carrier toppling off the back of their would-be rescue vehicle, some missing limbs, one missing everything beneath the waist. Several more writhed on the ground, wreathed in flame; other bodies burned and were still.
The great, beastlike rotary-wings closed in, their chin-mounted gatling guns emitting sharp, rough coughs as they came. The Warriors who were exiting C carrier sprawled in all directions; the machine gunner shuddered and slumped halfway down into the disabled APC.
Yaargraukh closed his eyes for one moment. In fifteen, maybe twenty, seconds, the entirety of First Troop had been destroyed—no, slaughtered—by the humans. Opening his eyes, he saw that the second scout car had survived so far, swerving to avoid a rocket fired by one of the slowly approaching rotaries. He hoped it reached the outskirts of Ylogh, but he could not afford the time to watch its progress; he had to prepare the defenders of Ylogh to face the onslaught of these two flying tanks.
Even as he turned to give orders to the young troop leader who stood transfixed by the scene of destruction out upon the flatlands, Yaargraukh heard a chorus of higher pitched engines crescendoing, of faster rotors slicing the air—from the opposite direction. He turned.
Rising from behind one of the wooded hillocks to the west, five smaller but faster rotaries were skimming low and lethal toward Ylogh, troop compartments overflowing with humans, their rifle muzzles angling forward in something like eagerness.
There was only one tactic left against such overwhelming odds. Yaargraukh turned to the three younger Hkh’Rkh clustered around him. “Seek the other defenders. They must obey three orders.” He took a breath, spoke slowly and clearly through clenched grinders:
“Run. Hide. Now.”