AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CONFIRM SOONEST.
(S) MARTINEZ, GHQ
Valentine didn't know whether to retch, faint, or shoot himself. Gamecock, up to show him a vintage combat shotgun, steadied him with an arm. "After all this? The river's open now. Between the Goliath and the boats, we can hold the river, now."
"Not 'defensive stance' enough," Duvalier said, appearing from nowhere, in her usual style.
"What about the Golden Ones?" Valentine asked. "We'll just abandon them here?"
"Must have been garbled. Doesn't make any sense," Lambert said. She turned to her communications staff. "The equipment must be to blame. Find the fault in our long-range gear. Take it all apart if you have to, and go over it piece by piece. I don't care if it takes a year to finish the job."
"That transmission was confirmed received," Valentine said. "Somebody might call that mutiny. They can shoot you for that."
"You seem to be healthy enough with a death sentence," Lambert said. "Operation Javelin's going to succeed. Maybe it'll just take a couple tries. But if they want me to stop, they'll have to drag me out by the heels."
"Us by the heels, suh," Gamecock said.
"Dots Lambert ignoring orders," Valentine marveled.
"Can't withdraw anyway," Ediyak put in. "We're in action."
"And will be the rest of the summer, I expect," Lambert said.
They watched Fort Seng fill.
The Golden Ones filed in, walking in the football-shaped formations of the fighting Grog march. A ratbit rode on broad, faun-colored shoulders here and there. The Gray Baron led his Grogs in, Snake Arms dancing with her reptiles at their head to Bear whistles, the warriors perhaps not as orderly as they'd been at the Gray Stronghold, but time would improve them from war band into soldiers.
What fascinating pieces to a yet-unknown future mosaic, Valentine thought. Smelly, disorderly, ragged-like Kentucky, with a full year of warfare washing over it. But toughened and slowly coming together, and unlike the silent, oppressed masses to the south, every one of them could be trusted with a gun and a knife.
He almost felt pity for the Kurian Order. He certainly felt it for the poor bastards who'd be sent up against them.
