Little was known about the Guldur, and even less about the Orak. They were from a distant part of the galaxy, far to the galactic east of the Guldur’s star empire, and this was one of the elite divisions of that vast distant realm. The presence of this new enemy added a frightening new dimension to the war.
They must have been staged and ready to attack long before their leader came out with the Guldur king to survey the battlefield. Their attack was perfectly equipped and prepared, and it broke the back of the Stolsh defenders in less than an hour.
In the streets of Ai, chaos reigned.
There was one narrow street leading up to the Pier, and he stood astride it like a colossus. He was the biggest Stolsh Melville had ever seen, dressed in full armor, like some ancient knight. Every surface was polished to a mirrorlike luster, reflecting the rainy skies in dismal splendor. When he stepped forward and shook hands it sounded like a brass band rolling gently down a steep hill. Shaking his armored hand was like grabbing a sack of large bolts.
He was Marshall DuuYaan, the commander of the Stolsh rear guard. He’d seen combat on many worlds before, and his people called him the “bravest of the brave.” Now Melville and his small force of sailors and marines were attached to him for this final defense. Melville had volunteered his men, and he was accepted with the same admonition that the Westerness consul had given him, “Doo noot becoome decisivelyy engaaged. Yoour ship willl be neeeded sooon.”
The sudden fall of the city walls caused their carefully conceived, complex plans to collapse. Most of the preselected refugees had struggled through the panic-stricken mobs to the Pier, but they needed time to board and escape from the rapidly advancing enemy forces. The rest of the city’s occupants, the vast majority of the remaining Stolsh population on Ambergris, were fleeing into the hinterland. But they, too, needed time to escape.
Time. It was all about time. Napoleon is reputed to have said, when asked by one of his generals for more time, “Ask of me anything but time.” In war, time is almost always purchased with lives.
Much of DuuYaan’s ad hoc force was already defeated and destroyed in desperate street battles. They’d traded their lives for time. Time for their wives and children to escape. Elite forces had been held in reserve for this mission, but now the rear guard was a tangled remnant of screaming, dying creatures battling in the street as Melville and DuuYaan looked on.
Melville watched in awe, with tears in his eyes as they died. No one ran, no one panicked. Each defender was a hero to the end. No, it was not about the “princes and prelates with periwigged charioteer.” It was about these men . . .
The men in tattered battalion which fights till it dies,
Dazed with the dust of the battle, the din and the cries,
The men with the broken heads and the blood running into their eyes.
They’d been pushed back to the final wooden bridge leading up to the isolated high ground where the Pier was located. Engineers were arriving to rig the bridge for demolition. Below them a brook, now flooded with rainwater, gushed through a deep ravine. To their rear, on the far side of the bridge, a battery of light howitzers was being positioned to cover the approaches.
Immediately in front of the two leaders was a four-way intersection. Straight ahead was the battle, behind them was the bridge. Refugees flowed into the intersection from the left and right, and fled over the bridge. These were the ones who had been selected for evacuation. The rest of the city’s citizens were headed into the swamps, marshes and coastlines of the outback. There were only three choices in the city that day. Escape to the Pier, flee into the wilderness, or die at the hands of the vast numbers of Orak, Guldur, and Goblan who were murdering, looting, tormenting, burning, molesting, torturing, raping, and eating everything in their path.
The rain pelted down and Melville shivered in his tattered blue wool uniform jacket. After the stifling heat, the impact of the cold front felt even more bitter than it actually was. Added to the shock of sudden defeat, the cold rain seemed to reach in and freeze men’s hearts.
Melville’s men stood behind him on the bridge, pressed to one side as the refugees flowed past. He and Petreckski, his two young lieutenants, four midshipmen, twelve marines, and two corpsmen all carried .45s. Von Rito and Kobbsven each had a BAR and an assistant gunner carrying extra magazines. Broadax and the two rangers brought up the rear with a reserve of ten marines. Each marine carried a bayoneted, double-barreled muzzle-loader, and a bandoleer of grenades. Each warrior also had a monkey, holding a belaying pin in its upper two hands.
The engineers were scrambling to rig the demo charges on the bridge’s wooden support structures. This should have been done before, but the sudden collapse of the city’s defenses had caught them by surprise.
“Ie knoow thaat yoou haave oorders too noot becoome decisivelyy engaaged,” DuuYaan boomed out to Melville.
Yeah, yeah, he thought. I’m getting tired of hearing those words. But they were his orders, and he intended to follow them.
“Buut,” the huge, gleaming Stolsh commander continued, “wee aapreciaate whaatever yoou caan doo foor us.”
“We will be here as long as you’ll have us, or until someone makes us go away. Either way I promise it’ll be exciting,” Melville said with a grin.
Even as he spoke, the flood of fleeing refugees dropped to a trickle, and the defending forces fell back from all directions. Left, right, and center, the retreating Stolsh rear guard now was pushed back into the intersection in one great heaving, dying mass of defenders.
An educated eye could tell that the defenders were losing heart. The engineers needed a few precious minutes to prepare the bridge for destruction. After fighting for every inch of city streets, the Stolsh rear guard was starting to crack. Dear God, thought Melville, they have been magnificent. But now, when they needed just a few more minutes, they were going to lose it all. That’s how so many battles have ended up over the centuries. So close, so very close. All they needed was a few more minutes. Now was the time for the leader to commit his last reserve: himself.
“Thoose aare myy men, aand theyy aare dyying. Ie muust jooin them,” said DuuYaan, drawing a long sword and cinching up his shield. A group of Orak broke through the line and he charged straight into them. The armored behemoth hit the enemy line with an impact that sounded like the brass band had rolled to the bottom of the hill and fallen into a deep ravine. In an instant his gleaming armor was coated with black powder, blood, and viscera. The men around him gained strength from his presence, the line stiffened, and they fought on for a few more precious minutes.
Steven Pressfield wrote historical novels about ancient Greece. He wrote with such scope and power that his works became required reading for military men across the generations. He’d written about what happened at moments such as this. . . .
Someone put the query, “How does one lead free men?”
“By being better than they,” Alcibiades responded at once.
The symposiasts laughed at this . . . even our generals.
“By being better,” Alcibiades continued, “and thus commanding their emulation. When I was not yet twenty, I served in the infantry. Among my mates was Socrates the son of Sophroniscus. In a fight the enemy had routed us and were swarming upon our position. I was terrified and loading to flee. Yet when I beheld him, my friend with gray in his beard, planted his feet on the earth and set his shoulder within the great bowl of his shield, a species of eros, life-will, arose within me like a tide. I discovered myself compelled, absent all prudence, to stand beside him.”
Yes, thought Melville, that’s what is happening here. I’m seeing something ancient and powerful unfold before my eyes. This is what Pressfield meant when he wrote: “A commander’s role is to model arête, excellence, before his men. One needs not thrash them to greatness; only hold it out before them. They will be compelled by their own nature to emulate it.”
And so they were. And so they were, for a little while.
DuuYaan was like a lighthouse, his men anchoring themselves around him as they were whirled and tossed by the storm. Then they were swept away and he stood alone.
Melville’s men were in a battle line with eighteen .45s up front and a BAR on each flank. He had himself, Petreckski, the two corpsmen, and the rangers immediately behind the line. Broadax and her squad of marines stood in reserve behind them. The two rangers were already picking off enemy sharpshooters who were moving onto the roof lines, firing double-barreled rifles as fast as the ten marines could load them. Behind them the engineers still worked desperately with the demolition charges.