March Upcountry

"Oh shit," Kosutic chuckled grimly.

"Yeah." Pahner nodded with a grim smile. "Another improvement. The suits that hadn't been 'upgraded' are okay. But that's just the four."

"What are we going to do?" Roger's eyes were wide, for Pahner had stressed repeatedly that they had to have the suits to take the starport.

"Fortunately, the contacts tend to wear out, so each suit has a spare in its onboard spares compartment. The ones sealed up in the storage packets are okay, but..."

"But there's only a couple of spares per suit, normally." Kosutic shook her head. "So we're down to four sets of armor for everything except taking the spaceport."

"Right." The captain nodded. "We can ca

"I guess that will have to do," Roger said with a shrug, then changed the subject. "So what's the plan for today, Captain?"

"Well," Pahner replied with his own shrug, "we wait until they have the majority of their forces in close, then engage with all the firepower we have. I won't say that I agree or disagree about whether they should be wiped out as a tribe, but we can't afford to have a large force following us to the next city-state. So they have to be eliminated as an operational threat at least."

"Can we do that?" Over the night, Roger's ardor had cooled, and he looked at the scattered weapons positions worriedly.

"Against what I'd estimate the maximum threat to be, yes," Pahner said. "There's a big difference between barbarian warriors and soldiers, and today these Kranolta are going to discover that."

"What's your estimate?" There were hundreds of fires in the jungle according to the taccomp in Roger's helmet—just under a thousand, in fact.

"I'm estimating a maximum of five thousand warriors with some camp followers. More than that is really hard to maintain logistically."

"Five thousand?" Roger choked. "There are only seventy of us!"

"Don't sweat it, Your Highness." Kosutic gave him a cold smile. "A defensive position like this gives us a ten-to-one advantage all by its lonesome. Add in the firepower, and five thousand isn't an impossible number." She paused and looked thoughtful. "Tough? Yeah. But not impossible. We're go

"We'll make it through," Pahner said grimly. "That's the only thing that matters."

"What did Cord think of those numbers?" the prince asked, looking over his shoulder at the shaman. Despite the Marines' confidence, it still seemed like a lot of scummies to him.

"The Kranolta are said to be as numerous as the stars in the sky," the shaman said quietly. "They cover the ground like the trees."

"Maybe they do," Pahner said, "but that's not what you could call a hard and fast number. And it's really difficult to support more than five thousand in these sorts of conditions. I don't see any sign of a baggage train, for example."

"And if it is more?" Roger asked dubiously.

"More than the stars in the sky?" Pahner smiled wryly. "If it's more than five thousand, well... we'll just handle it. The important part is to survive and damage them badly enough that they decide that fucking with Imperial Marines is a short road to Hell."

"Oh hell," Corporal Kane whispered.

The humans had been working in shifts throughout the night to prepare their defenses, and she stood on one of the recently constructed platforms within the burned-out bastion, monitoring the sensor remotes planted along the approaches to the citadel. That gave her the dubious pleasure of an advanced look at the approaching horde, and a horde it was. She took one more look at the numbers estimate, blanched, and keyed her radio.

"Sergeant Despreaux, could you step over to the west bastion?"

The company command group had gathered atop the curtain wall gatehouse, watching the gathering horde on their visor HUDs. Captain Pahner's maximum estimate had unquestionably been exceeded.

"How the hell could they have gathered fifteen thousand warriors?" Pahner demanded irately. He couldn't seem to decide whether he was more incredulous or more offended that the Kranolta had not abided by his professional estimate.

"Between fifteen and eighteen, actually, Sir," Lieutenant Gulyas corrected, looking at the readout on his own helmet heads-up display.

"Should I have Poertena start warming up the other suits?" "Lieutenant" MacClintock asked.

"No," Pahner said, thinking furiously.

"We could engage them at longer ranges," Lieutenant Jasco suggested. "The plasma ca

"No," Pahner said again, shaking his head. He pulled out a stick of gum and popped it into his mouth without any sort of ritual.

"This is go

"Pull the plasma ca

"But—" Lieutenant Jasco said. "Sir, we'll lose the walls!"

"Yep," Pahner agreed with a grim smile. "Better make sure the door to the keep is heavily reinforced. And tell Julian his people stay put in there until I tell him different. And make sure those damned pack beasts are tied down!" If the elephant-sized flar-ta got loose in those close confines, it would doom anyone who wasn't in armor.

"I'll take care of that," Jasco said, heading out the door.

"Get those plasma ca

"I'm on it," the lieutenant replied, already leaving, and Pahner turned back to the oncoming Kranolta.

"I still don't believe this." He shook his head. "Where do they get the food?"

"They've had word of our coming for some time now," Cord pointed out. "Undoubtedly they heard through rumors from Q'Nkok, and with that warning, the warriors would have gorged and gorged for days, then set off with packs of food for Voitan. We were lucky to arrive before the main host."

"They were probably waiting for us wherever the crossing of that Satan-damned swamp was," Kosutic agreed, nodding her head. "Good thing we didn't know where it was, or we'd be dead in the jungle."

"They can't stay together long," Cord admitted. "Only a few days, at most. But they don't intend to stay long; only long enough to kill us."

"And if we just hold them off," Roger continued, "they'll be waiting for us every few kilometers in the jungle."

"Which is why we have to do more than drive them off," Pahner confirmed. "And we will."

"Let's hope so," Roger said. "Let's hope so."