March Upcountry

"Gu

"Yes, Your Highness?" The gu

The city of Voitan had been vast, but the citadel was the simplest of constructions. It was built into the slope of the mountain, backed up to a cliff which had been quarried sheer, undoubtedly for building material for the rest of the city. A seven-meter curtain wall ran in a more or less semicircle from cliff to cliff and surrounded a three-story i

Slits for javelins and spears were arrayed on the "wall-level," pointing outward. No i

The keep itself was a large, burned-out, vine-covered shell. The upper story, like those of the bastions, had been constructed of wood and was now charcoal. The rear of the keep, however, was dug deeply into the hillside, its roof supported by cleverly constructed stone buttresses, which provided a large, cavelike area that could be used to shield the pack beasts, wounded, and noncombatants. The flar-ta, kept from stampeding by chains stapled into the naked rock, were on the ground level, while the wounded and noncombatants waited on a raised shelf on the north side, along with Julian and the other power-armored Marines.

There were spear slits at the keep's bailey level, but the only exterior door was on the second floor, up a staircase. Vines covered the walls, and trees had grown up through the flagstones of the bailey, but other than the vegetation and the damage to the gates, the gray stone of the fortress was intact.

Third Platoon, which was still more or less at full strength, had been assigned the left side of the wall, while First and Second shared the right. Teams from both groups were working feverishly to construct barricades to replace the broken and decayed gates, and Sergeant Jin had been noting the locations of the platoon's troopers and their fields of fire. It was important to ensure that all possible approaches were covered and that the heaviest fire could be directed at the point where the enemy would be most likely to attack in force.

With that in mind, Jin had placed his grenadiers in locations covering the primary avenues of approach. He'd also pointed out to them the locations that the enemy was most likely to use for cover. There were, unfortunately, a lot of those. The citadel overlooked what had once been a densely populated city, and the shells of buildings still loomed above narrow, twisting streets. That would have been enough to mask the approach of any attackers by itself, but the ruins were also massively overgrown with vines, creepers, small trees, and jungle ferns, producing what were effectively well-screened trenches up to the foot of the citadel wall. Those would be the particular target of the grenadiers, since they were the only troopers whose weapons would allow them to drop indirect fire behind obstacles.

The platoon also had two plasma ca

He was going to be without Julian and his team of suit-users. The inoperable suits had been lashed back onto the pack beasts, with their cursing users still trapped inside them, and carried out into the citadel. The gear was now scattered on one side of the bailey with Poertena working on it, but the perso

"I'm your new platoon leader," Roger said.

"Pardon me?" Jin looked around. Corporal Casset was standing with his jaw dropped, but other than the corporal (and the pissed-off and tired looking shaman standing behind the prince) no one else had heard Roger's a

"No, Gu

"Oh," Jin said. He did not add "joy," for some unknown reason, but after a moment he went on with slightly glassy eyes. "Very well, Your Highness. If you'll give me a moment, I'll walk you through the defenses and explain the placements. I would ask for your comments and suggestions after that."

"Very well, Gu

"Very well, Your... Sir," the sergeant said, shaking his head.

"Captain, we've gotten our people into position, and—"

"Shhh!" Pahner's hand waved Lieutenant Jasco to silence as the captain turned his head from side to side.

"Pardon me, Sir?" the lieutenant said after trying for a moment to figure out what he was looking at. All the lieutenant could see was the idiot prince talking to Gu

"Shhh!" Pahner repeated, then grunted in satisfaction as he finally managed to get the directional microphone onto the conversation just as Jin realized what his company commander had done to him.

Lieutenant Jasco maintained a straight face as Captain Pahner did something the lieutenant would have flatly denied was possible. He giggled. It was an amazing sound to hear out of the tall, broad officer, and Pahner cut it off almost immediately. He listened for a few more seconds, then switched off the mike and turned to Jasco with a seraphic smile.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" he asked, still chuckling. "You were saying?"

"We've gotten all of our people into position, Sir. When do you think they're going to attack?"

"Lieutenant," Pahner looked at the sky, "your guess on that is as good as mine. But I think they'll wait until morning. It's getting late, and they've never hit us at night. I'll come by your positions in a bit. Go get with your platoon sergeant and figure out a chow rotation for right now."

He could smell Matsugae starting something on a fire.

Roger sniffed and looked towards the keep where Kostas had di

Roger turned and swept his gaze over the troopers still working all around him. Now that the basics had been done—setting up the heavy weapons, assigning fields of fire, putting up sandbags where stones had fallen from the battlements of the citadel wall—the Marines were improving their individual positions. Despite the intense heat, even more focused here inside the stone walls, the troopers worked without pause. They knew it would be too late to improve their chances of survival after the Kranolta hit.