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son-of-a-bitch is.
His driver idled down. Cassius clambered out his escape hatch, approached the
obstacle. The lead crawler had put lights on it, but they did nothing to
illuminate its depths. He stared down into darkness. After a minute he fired
his lasegun downward. The flash revealed a bottom much nearer than he
expected.
He returned to his crawler. Stray Dog One, this is Starfire. Maneuver your
unit around parallel to the crevasse. Over.
It took two hours for the charter to wriggle into a position that suited him.
Stray Dog One, abandon your unit. Stray Dog Three, Stray Dog Six, push it
over. Over.
The two surviving charters groaned and strained. The vibration of their
effort shook the stone of the Thunder Mountains, made the big crawlers
shudder. Their engines growled and whined, their tracks ripped at the earth.
They injured themselves badly, but managed to topple the crawler into the
crevasse.
Cassius offloaded his troops and had them gather loose rock. They dumped the
detritus around the fallen charter. Hours crept away. The bridge grew, became
level. Cassius sent a charter over to test and tamp, then an empty pumper. The
fill held both times. One by one, the remaining units rolled.
That crevasse was the last serious obstacle. Abandoning the surviving
charters because they could no longer keep pace, Cassius swung the big units
onto the route between Twilight and Edgeward. He sped southward, maintaining
radio silence. Near Edgeward he swung west, toward Michael Dee and the
Whitlandsund.
His troops were exhausted. They had been cramped in their crawlers for days,
racked by tension, constantly haunted by the fear that the next minute would
be the one when a track went into heat erosion, or the mountain slid away
beneath them. Even so, Cassius offloaded them at the eastern mouth of the
Whitlandsund and sent them in. They made contact quickly.
Walters broke radio silence at last. Andiron, Andiron, this is Wormdoom, do
you read, over.
Mouse came on net only minutes later. Wormdoom, this is Andiron. Shift to
the scrambled trunk, over.
Cassius shifted. Mouse squeaked, Cassius, where the hell are you? We ve been
trying to get ahold of you for six days.
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I m right outside your door, Mouse. Moving into the Whitlandsund. I need
Ceislak s men.
You re on this side of the Edge of the World?
That s right. How soon can you get those men here?
How did you manage that?
Never mind. I did it. Send me those men. We can talk after we finish Dee.
All right. They re on their way. I don t know how you did it . . .
Cassius cut him off, turned to listen to the tactical nets once more.
He had been listening in since returning to Darkside, trying to assess the
situation back in the Shadowline. It did not look good for those he had left
behind.
Fifty-Five: 3032 AD
It was a very grim, very sour Masato Storm who watched the big board in the
war room. It looked terrible.
Someone moved a chair into place beside him. He glanced up at at a commtech.
He was holding the chair for Pollyanna.
Mouse smiled weakly. How are you? Any better?
Ready for anything. Except I limp a little. They say it ll go away. How is
it going?
Not good. I haven t heard from Cassius for days. I m scared for him. And up
there . . . He indicated the board showing the Whitlandsund. We made some
gains when the first wave came over, but it s slowed down. Way down. We re
still pushing them back, but not fast enough.
But you outnumber them.
We ve lost too many tractors. We can t bring our people over fast enough. It
looks like we ve only got two chances. Either Cassius turns up or my uncle
runs out of ammunition.
Sir! one of the commtechs yelled. Sir, I ve got Colonel Walters on Tac
One.
Put him on over here. Pollyanna, you re a good-luck charm. Maybe I ll strap
you into that chair.
She smiled wanly. I wasn t too lucky for Frog. Or Lucifer. Or . . .
Can it. Cassius s grim face came on screen. They argued back and forth
about Ceislak s battalion, and Mouse tried to discover how Walters had gotten
to Darkside. Cassius broke off.
He s in a foul mood, isn t he? Pollyanna asked.
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That he is. And he can be just as nasty as he wants as long as he does his
job. I feel a thousand percent better now.
Sir, commtech said a few minutes later, I have Colonel Walters again.
Put him over here.
Mouse? Cassius said, Sorry about snapping. It s the nerves, I guess. It s
grim out here. As your father would put it, the Oriflamme is up.
Pollyanna frowned a question. Mouse whispered, No quarter given or asked.
Cassius continued, We re in a bad spot. Nobody can back down. It s all or
nothing, and the losers die the death-without-resurrection.
I understand, Cassius. We re all under pressure.
Your uncle has got what he wanted. His battle to the death. A nasty smile
crossed Walters s mouth. I don t think the fool counted on being part of it,
though.
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