Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(161)
The target plane staggered, rolled inverted, and slammed into the big warehouse, just as the incendiaries from the following planes fell through the roof. Orange fire and oily black smoke seared Grik warriors and mushroomed up from the fallen crane, but a huge explosion blasted the warehouse apart. A second explosion, even bigger, sent a massive cloud of white smoke high in the air and pummeled Chack’s Brigade with smoldering timbers and other debris. “Maker!” Chack hissed. “The joint must’ve been full of munitions!” He scrambled to his feet. Flames roared all along their front, and few Grik could’ve survived the bombing and resulting explosion. Wiping his eyes, he spied a gap between the burning crane and shattered warehouse. “Generaal advance!” he shouted at the comm-’Cat, still trying to hide under his helmet. “Send it now! All units forwaard, no stopping!” He raised his voice. “First Raiders! Up an’ aat ’em!” He snatched up his Krag, bayonet already fixed. “Follow me!” he roared.
Very little fire met them as upwards of six hundred Raiders raced across the clearing. A few ’Cats fell, but the Grik musketry was sporadic and rushed. The fight for the downed crane itself, the parts not burning, was some of the bitterest Chack had seen. With such a narrow front, just a few dozen Grik made the Raiders pay dearly, but they couldn’t hold for long and the desperate work of bayonet, cutlass, teeth, and claws lasted only moments before the surviving Grik pulled back and the Raiders poured through. They were about halfway up the bay now, almost even with the north end of Island Number 1. Soldiers, Chack thought a bit grudgingly. Real soldiers, even better than the Grik we fought on the Western Maangoro River. And those were rear-area troops, for the most part. He knew these Grik were different from what they’d face at Sofesshk. Trained different, fighting for a different reason, but are these better—serving Kurokawa—than the Grik at Sofesshk will be, fighting for their own capital, their Celestial Mother, their God? Either way, it was going to be tough. And it wasn’t finished here. The Grik were running, but not running away, like the old days. They were looking for another place to stand.
The section of comm-’Cats caught up with him, puffing under the weight of their burden. “I got Akka Lead again,” the talker said. “He waanna know what else he can do.”
“Look at daat!” someone yelled, pointing out to sea. Chack looked. About six miles away, around the point of the western peninsula, Savoie’s tops could just be seen over the intervening jungle. Even at this distance, the huge Stars and Stripes of the Amer-i-caan Navy and Marine Clan was plainly visible, streaming from the mainmast aft. What’s more, Walker was steaming around the point, laying punishing shell fire into shore-battery positions that had opened up on her again as she headed back into the bay.
“Maker above,” Chack murmured in wonder. “Cap-i-taan Reddy has taken Saavoie!” he roared, his voice carrying above the din of battle. Feral cheers from Khonashi and Lemurians mounted in response. The force was growing rapidly as the rest of the brigade moved up. He looked at the comm-’Cat. “Tell Akka Lead to hold on. We’ll holler if we need him. We’re about to get mixed up pretty thick with the enemy.” He raised his voice again. “Onward, First Raiders! Aat ’em, First North Borno! Let’s finish it!”
Kurokawa’s Compound
Musket balls flailed the wooden pickets of the stockade surrounding the compound, spraying them with splinters. Sandra picked one out of the skin of her upper arm and glanced at Diania. The girl was rocking back and forth on her knees, eyes clenched shut—in pain, not fear—as she held her shattered hand to her breast. A musket ball had smashed it during their wild, brief exchange of fire with Iguri and his Grik. None of the enemy survived, but between that and now this firefight with Kurokawa’s guards, only Sandra, Diania, Corporal Tass, Ruffy, one Shee-ree named Minaa, and Maggiore Rizzo were alive. And only Sandra, Ruffy, and Rizzo weren’t seriously wounded. Tass had been hit in the leg and face. The leg was useless and his jaw had been shattered by a ball. He looked dazed, his mouth hanging open at an unnatural angle, bloody drool stringing down, but he still fired over the stockade as quickly as he could load his Allin-Silva rifle. Minaa was hit in both legs. He and Ruffy, with their Blitzers, were on either corner, guarding against a flank attack. Sandra had done all she could for the wounded and the jungle beyond the palisade beckoned, but Tass and Minaa weren’t going anywhere and she couldn’t leave them to die. Instead, she removed the magazine from her Blitzer and looked at it.
“Only a few rounds left,” she told Diania. She’d already taken her friend’s magazines, since the Impie girl could barely hold her weapon. “I doubt Ruffy and Minaa have much ammo either.” The result of their expenditure was clear to see in the courtyard between them and Kurokawa’s HQ, through gaps in the stockade: twenty Grik guards lay dead, and just as many were crawling, moaning, or squealing in pain. They’d all been victims of an impetuous charge straight at them through the door. Bunched up, they were impossible to miss. The fire galling them now came from the windows, the heavy timber frames giving the shooters better protection than the spindly palisade offered. “Do you think you can crawl over there and get his pistol?” She nodded at Iguri’s corpse.
“Aye’m,” Diania said, her voice strained. “An’ p’raps some Grik muskets.”