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8

"They're pounding us, Captain. Going to push forward soon," said the slight, bespectacled lance corporal.


"SmallMac! What the hell are you doing here?"


"Transferred in. You're getting a reputation, Fitz. You keep your men alive. And you don't lose."


It was a heavy weight to bear. "I won't always manage to do either, Corporal McTavish," he said quietly. He knew that in this man's case he was carrying a pregnant wife and two small children as well.


SmallMac shrugged. "Ah, but you try to do both, Captain. That's a rarity in a Shareholder officer."


Fitz found that, with the remnants of the rats (numerous) and the humans (few) from the collapse of the forward trenches, he had double his previous troop complement. There were only three other officers—a major who was keeping himself very busy with the troops who were furiously digging in behind them and two fresh-out-of-OCS lieutenants. He held a hasty staff meeting with them and his NCOs.


"Right, based on previous experience, we know when their artillery stops, the Maggots will come swarming."


"You mean the Magh', Captain," said one of the new lieutenants.


Fitz gave the snotty wet-behind-the-ears brat a look that would curdle milk. "Lieutenant Pahad, you'd better learn to speak the language that your men speak, or you'll be a mortality statistic. While I'm on the subject—Sergeant Major, I want you to detail a veteran NCO to each of these new officers. You two—" he pointed at them in their new, crisp BDUs with their new, shiny pips—"will listen to those men. Take advice from them before you give any orders, if you have time."


Pahad drew himself up. "How are we supposed to establish authority under those conditions, Captain?"


Fitz noticed that the other youngster had said nothing. For his sake, and the sake of the men this young idiot would command, he continued. "Lieutenant Pahad. Does the term 'frag' mean anything to you?"


"No, Captain, it does not," the man said stiffly.


"It's an old combat word. One my father told me about. From a long-ago war on old Earth. Unpopular officers who went into combat usually had a fragmentation grenade dropped into their pockets—a few seconds before it exploded. Our troops are combat veterans. They'll take orders or they wouldn't have survived. What they won't take is crap from wet-behind-the-ears ignoramuses who know nothing about real fighting. The average life of a soldier on the front is about forty days. The average life of a second lieutenant is half that. If you're stupid enough to think that that is coincidental . . . then you're a dead man walking. Now, I don't personally give a shit if you get killed. But if the NCOs in your unit tell me you wasted a single troop's life through your arrogance . . . you'd better be dead. Because I'll kill you before my troops do. Is that clear?"


The lieutenant gaped at him. But Fitz noticed that the other one nodded.


"Ahem." The sergeant major cleared his throat. "What you may not know, sir, is that the captain here has the best Maggot-kill rate we know of. He's also known to be an absolute bastard—pardon my saying so, sir—" he nodded at Fitz—"at weapons and fitness drill. He's also got the best troop survival rate on the front. Most of his men are veterans. And we get volunteers wanting to serve under him. That's a first for the hottest sector on the front. You're privileged to serve here, son." Which, as the sergeant major was perhaps two years older than Pahad, was not unamusing.


Fitz stopped the incipient reply with a finger. "Right. Enough of this. If you have any problems with me, Lieutenant, see me afterward. If we live through this, you can go and complain to the colonel. In the meanwhile, you will spend the next eight weeks on the front lines."


"If you survive that long," muttered SmallMac.


Fitz pretended he hadn't heard him. The white-lipped lieutenant certainly had. "Now, I've told Ariel to get the rats to work as the rats in my old command did. Two rats per human. The rest will be split into three groups, Sergeant Major, two cover groups and a backup. For each cover group I want two strong, fit, experienced soldiers. They'll be carrying heavy loads of rations and sugar for the rats. I want fast packhorses with brains. For the third group I want light, fast troops, twenty of them. They're our backup and, if we get a chance, our spearhead group. I want troops who can run."


"Sah! I'll confer with the platoon sergeants and have them assembled."


"Do that. And tell the troops the first one to cause trouble or bad feeling with the rats is going to answer to me, personally. Now, medics . . ."


 


At three that afternoon, the Magh' guns fell silent. And the fighting began. They came in waves over the top. They came in columns out of tunnels. And they seemed to be only hitting Fitz's patch of the line. It was obvious that they intended to push the weakened front into a beachhead. The Magh', it appeared, did not know the meaning of "retreat" or "fear."


They learned the meaning of "die."


Fitz nearly learned it himself. Lieutenant Pahad did. As Sergeant Anderson said, the Maggots had merely saved the captain trouble. But toward dusk the attack began to slow down. The last wave was more of a splash than a wave. As the Magh' artillery began to cut loose again, the rats and troops in Fitz's third group, with him at their head, went over the top. Moving as fast as a slowshield would allow, taking advantage of the Magh's weaker eyesight, they pushed into the human-abandoned old second line. The Magh' here were few and far between. Obviously the creatures had thrown everything at the human line. How fast they could move more troops up to fill the gap was an unknown. But the old line two was not under artillery bombardment. Fitz began to move men and rats forward. He rested them in the relative tranquillity of the comparatively easily recaptured line. The Magh' had moved their artillery forward in anticipation of the human line falling. Now, rather like Drake and the Spanish Armada, Fitz realized his men were too close to be fired on. If he had reinforcements now, he could keep pushing, maybe even to the Magh' force field edge. Only one massive human assault had managed that in the past, at vast cost in lives and materiel.


Fitz got on the radio to sector headquarters.


"Colonel Brown."


"Try and hold them a bit longer, Fitzhugh," said the colonel. "We've almost got the earthworks finished for the new trenches. And the attacks usually slack off at dusk."


"Sir. We've held them off. In fact, we've retaken the old line two. I've got my troops working on repairs right now."


"What? Impossible!" huffed the colonel, sounding less than grateful. "It must have been less of an attack than we'd expected."


"We estimate between ten and twenty thousand Magh', sir. But we have a bit of an advantage right now, sir. We appear to be so close that their guns' elevation capability does not allow them to fire on us. We think they've moved their artillery to our old line one. I'd like to press the advantage, sir. We can take those fieldpieces. But we'll need more men. Reinforcements before dawn."


The colonel showed the military dash and flair which had taken him so far in HAR's make-work prewar army, and seemed destined to push him higher as the most incompetent of the mediocre-to-useless chateau-officer class. "Um. Well. Er. Don't you think you should play it safe?"


"We can hold these lines, sir, if that's what you want me to do," said Fitz. "But capturing some of the Magh' artillery would let us onto the technology they're using. It would be quite a kudo for you."


"Hmm. I don't like your newfangled way of doing things, Fitzhugh, but you do get them done," said the colonel. "Yes. Advance, see if you can take a Magh' fieldpiece. I'll see if I can scare up some reinforcements."


"If we push too far, sir, without reinforcements, we could lose even these trenches. So I'm afraid I need a firm commitment, sir."


"What? Damn your eyes, man. You'll have them. Take those guns at all costs," boomed the colonel.


"At least a company of rats, sir. Maybe even a few of these new rats, if possible."


"You're insufferable, Fitzhugh. Get me a gun and you'll get them."


"I'll rely on you for that, Colonel. Out."


"I'faith. What a whoreson Achitophel!"


Fortunately, Fitz did not transmit Ariel's accurate comment to the colonel.


 


The advance began. It was rapidly obvious that the Magh' had never met such tactics from the HAR armed forces before. The usual slow buildups and massed assault of the meat-grinder war that the HAR chateau generals fought, they dealt very effectively with. They simply outgunned and outnumbered the humans, and it appeared that the Magh' generals also had no objection to vast body counts. The idea that a thrust might be matched with a counterthrust, immediately, without two or three days of troop movements, appeared to have taken them off-balance.


"Get me Major Bartok," snapped Fitz to the radio operator.


The artillery officer was obviously bleary with sleep. Great, thought Fitz. Our artillery is near ineffectual and here we are in a major battle, and their commander has been catching up on his shut-eye. "Major. We're retaking our old front lines. Your men are shelling us." Slowshields at least meant they weren't being killed. But they could be buried, and slowed down.


"Huh?" said Bartok. "But we were pushed back two days ago. There's been no major advance planned."


Fitz ground his teeth. "Major. I'll set off a red flare. Your range finders can pick it up. We're fighting hand to hand in the trenches of our old trench one. It's slow going because we're thinly stretched. We've got the defensive troops from one trench line occupying two and fighting in a third. We've been promised relief before morning."


"First I've heard of it," grumbled the major. "It wasn't mentioned at last week's staff briefing."


Fitz had to stop talking to help Ariel with a pair of arrowscorps, which was probably just as well, as it stopped him biting the fool's head off. Then he let off the flare and went back to trying to keep his temper and get the human gunners to stop firing on their own side.


"Check with Colonel Brown. We've taken advantage of a situation. Look, it would help us if you could range your guns beyond us instead."


"Hmph. I'll put you onto the gunnery officer for tonight. Out."


The gunnery officer at least was simply cooperative. And his gunners, despite the fact that HAR industrial technology was still battling along in the nineteenth and early twentieth century and their fieldpieces were to match, were more than cooperative. Their rate of fire increased, which, as Fitz had heard, took nothing short of a miracle. At least somebody back there wanted them to succeed.


Then he and Ariel were fully engaged again, in the first hard fighting in this trench. They'd reached the gun emplacements. The Magh'der, the kind that tended the fieldpieces, were there in numbers and it was obvious that they felt about their strange weapons the way ants do about their grubs. But they appeared to be genetically designed to tend guns . . . not fight rats and men.


Looking at the pod of captured alien weapons in the infrared torchlight, Fitz allowed himself a brief moment of triumph in front of his cheering troops. Even the rats were caught up in it. "Methinks these should be worth a good few claws, eh, Captain," chittered one, cheerfully, kicking the wheelless platform, with its long stabilizers.


Ariel licked a slash on her shoulder. She pointed at the barrels. "Long muddy congers aren't they? Fair give you envy, Gobbo."


She stuck her long nose into the air. Sniffed. Twitched her ears. Fitz noticed several of the other rats doing the same.


"Methinks, it is the cat," said Pooh-Bah.


" 'Tis time to cut and run," Ariel announced. "The Maggots are coming thick and fast from back there."


"We should be getting backup soon. We'd better dig in. Issue rations all round," said Fitz. "Radio. Let's get the Colonel and find out why they aren't here yet."


 


Minutes later Fitz knew fear. "We've taken their gun pod. Three fieldpieces, sir. But we need reinforcements if we're to hold them."


The colonel paused. "Er. I consulted General Blucher, and he refused to countenance moving troops until morning."


"Morning will be too late, Colonel," snapped Fitz. "The Magh' are just about solid out there. They want to retake their guns and they're not counting costs. If you want these guns, if you want this trench, if you want my men to survive, I need reinforcements now."


"Well, I'm sorry, Captain Fitzhugh," said the colonel huffily. "but there is nothing I can do, now."


"Useless asshole."


There was a splutter of outrage from the radio. But Fitz was too busy to care.


"If we try to pull back now, we'll be exposed to the faster Magh'. So. We'll need a rear guard."


"What about these guns, sir?" asked the surviving lieutenant.


"We'll do our best to destroy them, Lieutenant Cavanagh. You've done well today. You'll be leading the retreat back to trench two. We'll hold them as long as we can here. It'll be over to you to hold them there. Bring up as many men as possible from trench three. Sergeant. Drawing straws time. I want one man in three staying here."


The young lieutenant was pale. "With respect, sir. I'll stay here. You lead them back. You're worth a lot more than I am to the troops. I'm going to try and turn these guns on them."


A good kid, thought Fitz. I wonder why he got sent to "Fort Despair?" Probably too good, just as the other one had been too obnoxious. In the midst of mediocrity and incompetence, "good" was unpopular. He shook his head. "Lieutenant, thank you. But what I'm asking you to do is no lesser task. It's a tough one. You must keep the retreat orderly, keep it disciplined or it'll turn into a rout, and then we're lost. If the troops are panicked and half-dead with exhaustion when they get to trench two, they won't hold that. And I'm relying on you to do that, rather, because the rats will stay for me. They won't for you. And without them we have no rear guard. But it is a good idea about the guns. Now, move out. Go. Give us a flare when you have less than fifty yards to go."


The lieutenant saluted crisply. "Damn that lily-livered colonel and his stupid general to hell, sir. I'll hold that trench, come hell or high water." He turned. "Sergeant. Move them out in an orderly fashion. The first man to run or panic had better keep running because he'd be better off if the Maggots killed him than if I caught him." His voice cracked slightly. But the troops obeyed him, as if he were a veteran.


Three minutes later the old front line was populated by a skeleton crew of men and rats. And Fitz was wrestling with the guns. SmallMac and Ewen were assisting. Fitz's heart had fallen still lower when he'd seen the faces of his old squad mates. But . . . the lots had been drawn. Someone had to get the short straws. Some of those who retreated had families too. But he wished like hell he could have sent SmallMac back too.


Ewen, a man who could lift half an ox carcass back when he'd been a meat packer, strained with Fitz to turn barrels. They could tilt the entire structure but not turn it. There were no wheels, just flat metal platforms.


SmallMac nearly knocked them both flying, as the barrel began to rotate under its own steam. "What the hell are you fiddling with, Mac!"


The ex-horse-breaker gave a wry grin. "There must be electronic locks holding them, Fitz. Damned if I'm going to call you 'Captain' when we're all going to die. This disc here looked likely, and we need to learn to work them before the Maggots arrive."


"Hell's teeth. You're right and I'm an idiot. Each of you to a gun. Fiddle. I just hope we don't shoot at our own men or blow these things up."


Three minutes later they had rotation and elevation licked. They had reloading done too. Firing . . . well it was only when Fitz thought of the flat-scorpion shape of the gunners that Ariel discovered where the firing lever was. Tailgunners! Still, the shots they managed to direct toward the enemy were probably ineffectual, especially as the guns could not be elevated beyond a certain point.


"Bugger this for a joke!" yelled Ewen as the first Magh' came over the top. He cranked the gun barrel down furiously. Instead of using it as the howitzer it was designed as, he directed the barrel straight at the oncoming mass. It couldn't be elevated enough, but it could be depressed.


For the next few moments it rained slowshielded Maggots and earth.


"Yes!" The other two also hauled their gun barrels down.


The Maggot shells couldn't actually blow the enemy apart, not inside slowshields. But their weapons had been intended to fling a shell at high trajectory for a few miles. At this close a range it could physically remove anything. Blow them away if not apart. And the flying debris hardened slowshields and stopped the Magh' advance.


"Gather around the guns!" yelled Fitz. As long as they could keep them off the guns, as long as the shells lasted, they could hold back the bulk of the Maggot tide. With more luck than judgement he managed a skimming, plowing shot along the ground nearly parallel to the trench. Not only did it blow away the bulk of the wave of Magh' who had been pressing forward, but it also hardened the slowshields behind them. "Retreat on the guns," he yelled again, desperately reloading, knowing that his lucky shot had bought them the time to do so. Ariel bit down on something and a claw cut Fitz's face. He was in pain, but this was no time to stop and think about it. He must fire again! The rear guard surged back toward the gun pod, fighting their way through the few Maggots who had reached the trench. Soon, he had a reloader. And as the humans and rats fended off close attackers, the curiously silent alien howitzers were used in the fashion of the siege cannon of the fourteenth century.


Despite this, the Magh' seemed endless. Even the light of a flare behind them was of no help. There was no retreat now. The Magh' had surrounded them. And the shells were getting few.


Fitz saw Ewen abandon his gun and attempt to wade though the swirl of Magh' fighter bodies, using his huge strength to pick them up and fling them away . . . And then he went down under the tide. The rat that had been on his shoulder ran across Magh' backs. It nearly made it, too. SmallMac also was plainly out of shells—and defenders. There were still some fifteen men and an equal number of rats around Fitz's gun.


And he had three more shells.


SmallMac must have seen the rat nearly make it running across Magh' backs. He leapt.


Only the man didn't try to run on their backs. He leapt onto the biggest long-legged runner there. Astride it. Out of reach of claws and stingers.


The horse-breaker used all the skills at his disposal to cling to something that hadn't ever been ridden. Stayed on and somehow propelled his alien steed though the press. And then flung himself at the raised tier at the far end of the gun platform.


A claw snagged his foot. For a moment it looked as if he'd be pulled down. Then a rat bit through the clawjoint. Screaming . . . grabbing anything for handholds . . . SmallMac was up.


And so were they. Whatever control SmallMac had grabbed on the tier was raising the entire platform. Men and rats scrambled, snatched for purchase as the whole platform wobbled gently up into the sky, the rotors underneath lifting, clanging into suddenly hardening slowshields, faltering, lifting again. Maggots leapt frantically after them. Fitz saw Ariel go down under one. He lunged at it, pulling it aside.


Its razor-edged claw cut into his thigh and up toward his belly . . . before something stopped it.


Ariel.


The hovercraft-mounted gun was genteelly blundering deeper into enemy territory. As he lay there bleeding, Fitz saw SmallMac, his face white with pain, sticking his bangstick into holes plainly intended for a claw. And, although it nearly had them off, turning the thing in a wobbling circle toward the HAR-held lines.


With Fitz holding on to Ariel, and she holding on to him, consciousness faded as the handful of rear guards headed home, in the dawn.


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Framed