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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mayrkos Harshu's face was completely expressionless as the imagery from Commander of Fifty Fahrlo's recon crystal played back before him. Klayrman Toralk wished his face could be equally disciplined, but that was more than he could manage.
Graholis! What the hells did Myr run into? And what the fuck did he think he was doing with that second attack?!
The imagery concluded with Deathclaw circling overhead while his two wounded wingmates came in for quick, clumsy landings. Toralk didn't have the dragon-healers' reports yet, but he'd be surprised if the more badly wounded of the two survived. And whether the beast lived or not, both of the injured dragons were going to be out of action for a long time.
Which means I have exactly three battle dragons left—all of them blacks, he thought grimly.
"Thank you," Harshu said almost absently to the Gifted technician. The man had done extraordinarily well to get the imagery transferred so quickly, but he didn't look very happy, despite the two thousand's well deserved thanks.
Probably because he isn't a total idiot, Toralk thought.
The technician departed, and Harshu and Toralk looked at one another across the map table.
"It would appear," Harshu said with a thin, humorless smile, "that it's fortunate I'd already decided to halt the offensive here in Traisum."
Toralk winced.
"Sir," he began, "I'd apologize for this ... this debacle, if there were any way to excuse it. I—"
"That's enough, Klayrman," Harshu interrupted. The Air Force officer closed his mouth, and the Expeditionary Force's CO shook his head. "I saw your and Five Hundred Myr's attack plan. I was fully aware of the Intelligence appreciations upon which it was based, and I approved it. Whatever blame there may be, it belongs to me as much as it does to you."
Toralk started to disagree with his superior's assessment, then made himself stop and shook his own head.
"That's very understanding of you, Sir," he said instead. "But whoever's to blame, we've got a major problem here."
My, Klayrman, a corner of his brain mocked, what a massive gift for understatement you do have.
"For all practical purposes," he continued, "my battle dragon strength has just been wiped out. The blacks I have left are the least effective for this sort of attack. And, to be honest, despite all the smoke and explosions our pilots have reported, I doubt very much that they succeeded in neutralizing the fort's defensive fire."
"Probably not," Harshu agreed. The two thousand gazed down at the map of the terrain around Fort Salby, rubbing his chin gently.
"All right," he said finally. "There's no point standing here beating ourselves up over our losses. What matters are our remaining resources for prosecuting the attack."
Toralk looked at him, then cleared his throat respectfully.
"Sir," he said diffidently, "as I understand our basic operational pla
"And you're thinking that if we take heavy losses—additional heavy losses—against Salby, we won't have anything left to conduct that mobile defense with." Harshu's voice sounded remarkably calm, and Toralk nodded.
"That's exactly what I'm thinking, Sir."
"Well, I'm not certain you're wrong," Harshu said frankly. "On the other hand, now that I've seen Fifty Fahrlo's recon images, I'm more convinced than ever that securing Fort Salby itself would be extremely valuable. The ground-level approach to the portal is even more constricted from the up-chain side than I'd thought it was, and thanks to the portal itself, there's no way—no practical way—they could flank us out of position. It would be a straight up fighting withdrawal to the portal, with our transport dragons giving us the ability to pull our men out at the very last-minute."
"I can't disagree with that, Sir. But at the same time, the cliff face, alone, is going to be a major terrain obstacle for anyone without aerial capability. Frankly, if I were a Sharonian, I'd figure it was a pretty solid cork all by itself. We don't need to control the approaches, as well."
"I'm not as positive about that." Harshu shook his head. "I've been thinking about what they did to Hundred Thalmayr at the swamp portal. They used man and pack animal-portable weapons for that attack; for this one, they'd have their 'railroad' available to bring in really heavy weapons. And remember the sheer size of some of the machinery the overflight picked up. I've been trying to imagine what one of their artillery pieces might look like built on that scale and, to be honest, the thought scares the crap out of me.
"Whether they've got any that big or not, it's obvious that they have some which are at least a lot bigger and heavier than anything we've encountered so far. Obviously, we haven't seen those in action yet ... which means I don't have any sort of measuring stick to evaluate how far through a portal they could shoot. I'd prefer to have some extra depth, enough room to at least get a good, solid feel for their capabilities, before we make a determined stand defending the cliffs. For that matter, simply deploying in well fortified defensive positions in this kind of terrain would force them to slow down, move cautiously. We wouldn't have that advantage anywhere else—or, at least, not to this extent—if they ever did get past the cliffs.
"Finally, as you yourself just pointed out, our whole object, when you come right down to it, is to buy time for the Commandery to get a real field army in here. Not only that, it's clear we're going to have to recall Carthos—or, at least, Hundred Helika's strike—to reinforce your surviving battle dragon strength, and we're going to have to buy time for that, as well. Well, if that's the case, then let's start buying it as far forward as we can."
"But, Sir—"
"It can be argued either way, Klayrman," Harshu said. "Unfortunately, we don't have time to debate it properly—not with their reinforcements as close as they probably are by now. That means I've got to make the decision right now, and, to be frank, with so much of our battle dragon combat strength written off, our ability to mount a mobile defense has just been pretty damned seriously compromised, even assuming we get Helika up here to reinforce you. Which leaves us with an interesting dilemma. Do we risk even more losses in a possibly unsuccessful attempt to secure a chokepoint we can hold without dragons, or do we avoid the losses but accept that slowing these people in the open field is going to be a lot harder without those same dragons?"
Toralk frowned as he realized he hadn't really considered that aspect of their suddenly unenviable strategic position. He'd been too focused on their disastrous losses and what it had done to their combat power right here, right now, to think that far ahead.
"We've still got the transports, Sir," he pointed out after a moment. "Some of them—some of the tactical transports, the transport-battle dragon crosses—have breath weapon capability. Not anything I'd like to take up against another dragon, you understand, but enough to make them effective against ground targets not covered by the kind of firepower they've got concentrated here. And whether or not we decided we could commit them as improvised stand-ins for the battle dragons, they'd still give us operational mobility that has to be enormously better than theirs."
"Agreed."
Harshu's eyes were hooded, his lips pursed in a thoughtful, silent whistle as he folded his hands behind him and stepped out of his tent into the morning sunlight.
Toralk followed him, gazing out across the dragonhead. If a man hadn't known about the nature of the losses the Expeditionary Force had just suffered, he might have been excused for wondering what all the doom and gloom were about. After all, their perso
"I agree with your point about the transports, Klayrman," Harshu reiterated after several moments. "But we still don't know exactly how powerful this reinforcement of theirs is going to be. Given what they just did to us, my estimate of what's likely to happen when they're allowed to attack us just got a lot more pessimistic. That leaves me even more strongly inclined to continue the attack."
"Sir—"
"I know what you're going to say, and you may be right," Harshu interrupted Toralk's nascent argument.
"But we've still got a major force advantage, we haven't committed the gryphons or our cavalry, and these people still haven't seen our combat engineers at work. Under the circumstances, I'm inclined to risk additional casualties, considering the possible payoff if the attack succeeds. Be honest, Klayrman.
We both know we've gotten off incredibly light to this point. I know we've just taken a truly heavy hit to your battle dragons, but I don't think we can justify simply turning around and retreating from a potential prize like this one when the rest of our force is still completely intact. We haven't been hauling all this cavalry and all this infantry around just so we could decide not to use it!"
Toralk nodded without speaking. After all, he couldn't argue with anything Harshu had just said.
"What I won't risk are the transports," the two thousand continued firmly. "You're right about the mobility advantage we'll retain as long we keep them intact. I'd prefer to keep the light cavalry intact, too. This is going to be a job for the dragoons and the heavy horse, I think."
And if you lose the heavy cav, you lose less of your tactical mobility down the road, Toralk added silently. Of course, you lose more of your total firepower, but still ... .
He considered the situation, his mind turning to the problem of how best to employ the aerial assets he could still muster. And, as he did, he discovered that he actually felt at least a flicker of optimism. The discovery astonished him, and he shook his head again, this time in rueful admiration.