“Commence firing.”
The Terran battle line let loose a devastating hail of beams and missiles that caught the advanced elements of the Komani attackers in an inescapable deluge of fire. The force beams sprayed back and forth across the lines of warriors and their little flyers. Men and machines were sliced apart, brush and grass set ablaze, rocks and earth vaporized by the intense beams of light. Anti-personnel missiles exploded overhead, showering the area with deadly shrapnel.
The spearhead of the Komani attack was shattered. The Terran curtain of fire began to creep up the face of the hills, catching the Komani warriors further back. The Komani advance halted and the warriors took whatever cover they could find among the sparse bushes and Jagged rocks of the hillsides.
“We stopped them!” the exec marveled. “Stopped them cold,”
“Too easily,” Vorgens countered.
“We could counterattack; move up those hills and mop them up.”
Vorgens shook his head. “Perhaps that’s what they expect us to do. No, instead of attacking, we’re moving back. Pass the word—all units to fall back slowly half a mile.”
“But that will give us less room for maneuvering— make us a more compact target.”
“Yes, and it will also make a greater open space between us and the enemy; an open space almost completely without cover. This is a rear guard action, remember. We’re trying to avoid major contact with the enemy.”
The exec nodded, then began giving out the necessary orders on his communicator.
Slowly, the ponderous dreadnaughts and cruisers and their escorting vehicles began to withdraw from their positions. The battlewagons on the flanks pulled back first, then those in the center joined in the movement. A huge bowed line, spreading nearly the width of the valley floor, edged backward, away from the still-risingun.