March Upcountry

"Nope," Kosutic agreed, looking around at the vegetation flailed by the grenade launcher and the scattered bodies of the Kranolta attackers, "it sure don't."

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Cord examined the blade in the firelight.

The weapon was a Mardukan two-handed sword. At nearly three meters in length, it would have been ridiculously oversized for a human, but its proportions were lean, lethal, and graceful, and its silver-and-black patterning and elaborate engravings reflected red in the flickering light.

"Beautiful craftsmanship," Cord whispered. "Definitely Voitan work."

Much of the pattern was covered in a patina of rust which had been inexpertly scrubbed in places, damaging the very artistry the scrubber had meant to reveal.

"Damned Kranolta," the shaman added.

"Yeah, but it's useless for us," Lieutenant Jasco said, shaking his head. His arm was cradled in a sling with a broken ulna as a result of the ambush. Fortunately, his quick-heal nanites were on the job and he'd be out of it in a day or two, none the worse for wear.

Others hadn't been as lucky.

Captain Pahner appeared out of the darkness. He tossed a short sword or long knife point-first into the ground beside the shaman and nodded to the lieutenant.

"True," he agreed. "But this will work just fine, and most of them were carrying at least one of them." He paused, looking speculatively at Cord, and then cleared his throat. "And a bunch of them were carrying something else, too. Horns that looked... sort of familiar."

The shaman clapped his true-hands in agreement with a shiver of disgust.

"The Kranolta take the horns of kills as souvenirs. They prefer the horns of champions, but in fact, any will do. The souvenirs of lesser enemies are made into musical instruments," he added, examining the knife before he tossed it down dismissively. "Well crafted, but it's only a dagger."

"Maybe for you Mardukans," Pahner replied, taking a seat by the fire. "But for us, that's a short sword. Combine it with large shields and a javelin, and I think we'll show you a thing or two."

"You're pla

Jasco had been arguing in favor of a technique using longer swords and smaller shields: the "Scottish model." He felt that the longer swords would be more effective against the reach of the Mardukans. Of course, against a weapon like the one the shaman was examining, any possible human reach with a sword wouldn't matter.

"I think the Roman model will be easier to learn," Lieutenant Gulyas put in. The Second Platoon leader joined the group gathered around the fire and took a seat as well. He slapped a bug on his neck and shook his head. "Not that it will help worth a damn, if today is any example."

The company had taken heavy casualties, particularly in First and Second Platoons. And while the majority of the deaths were from the spears and swords of the attacking Mardukans, there were numerous minor injuries from the grenades of the prince's bombardment. Reactions to Roger's actions were mixed. It came down to those who'd been saved by his intervention being in favor of it, and those who'd been injured by it being against. The only undecided were those like Sergeant Julian, who'd been saved while being injured. He said he would make up his mind after the ribs healed.

"We survived it," Pahner said stoically. The company had been devastated by the ambush, and had lost Lieutenant Sawato, a platoon sergeant, and two squad leaders. But that didn't mean the mission was a failure. Or impossible. "We need to move smarter. From now on, we're going to put a squad out front on a three-pronged point. That should spring any ambushes before we get to them."

"It's not doctrine, Sir," Jasco pointed out, fingering his sling. "It won't spring a long-range ambush, and you're effectively offering a squad as a sacrifice instead of one Marine."

The captain shook his head angrily.

"We keep forgetting that the Mardukans are range-limited. Or these Mardukans are, at least—that may change when we finally hit some of them with gunpowder. But as long as we keep flankers out at thrown-weapon range to the front, the Kranolta can't ambush the main body. They don't have the range. So we change the doctrine."

"And pack up the goddamned plasma guns," Gulyas said with a grimace. Bosum's death had been spectacular, and most of the plasma gu

"Yeah," Jasco snapped. "No shit."

He was out half a squad and a team leader from the malfunction. Between Koberda's death and the loss of most of the squad's Alpha Team to the plasma rifle malfunction, Gu

"Well, like the King said in Q'Nkok," Pahner pointed out, "if you have one problem, it's sometimes insoluble. But if you have several, they sometimes solve each other. We took enough casualties that there are spare weapons for all the plasma gu

"As long as the ammo holds out, Sir," Jasco said.

"That too," the company commander admitted with a grim smile. "That too. Which brings this conversation full circle."

Roger knew that doing kata while angry was pointless. No matter how many times he tried to find his balance, he could never quite manage it, yet he couldn't stop, either. He spun in the darkness behind his tent, hair windmilling out in a golden halo, away from the eyes of most of the company while he tried to work out his frustration, anger, and fear.

He was shocked by the casualties the company had taken. Despite everything, it had never truly occurred to him that the Marines might be wiped out by this march. Oh, intellectually he'd acknowledged the possibility, but not emotionally. Not at the heart of him. Surely modern troops, armed with Imperial weapons, would be able to slash their way through an enemy armed only with spears and swords or the crudest of firearms.

But that presumed the enemy was unwilling to take casualties. And it also presumed that the Marines could see the enemy in time to kill him before he reached such close quarters that all of their advantages in range and firepower were negated. The failure of the automated sensors to detect the attackers before they struck boded ill for the rest of the journey.

Although the tactical sensors were, theoretically, designed to detect a broad range of possible "traces," it was now clear that the software depended heavily on infrared and power source input. If it had a possible contact, but the contact was "anomalous," it filtered by infrared tracing and power emissions, which made perfectly good sense against high-tech opponents who would be emitting in those bands.

But the Mardukans emitted in neither of them, so the sensors were throwing out most detections as ghosts. In some cases during the battle, the helmet HUDs had flatly refused to "caret" the enemy at all, which had thrown off the Marines, who were trained to depend primarily on their helmet sensors precisely because those sensors were so much better than the ones evolution had provided. Except that now they weren't.