They were in the midst of the maneuver when the real Komani attack came howling out of the hills on both their flanks. Thousands of warriors swarmed down on both sides of the Terran line and began pouring fire into the armored vehicles-
“This is it,” Vorgens muttered as he watched his viewscreen. The hills, even the sly, seemed black with charging Komani.
“Good grief, look at them,” the exec said. “It’s a lucky thing we didn’t advance when I wanted to. We’d have been surrounded.”
“Let’s get to work,” Vorgens said.
The Watchman began dictating a steady stream of ordersIn response, the Terran battle line continued to edge backward, and bowed even more, with the battlewagons on both flanks pulling back further and facing outward to meet the double attack of the Komani.
A sudden hail of missiles and force beams, including a few nuclear missiles, smashed into the Terran forces. One of the nuclear warheads got through and vaporized a dreadnaught. Vorgens1 own vehicle, a few stations up he line, bucked and rattled when the concussion wave blew past.
As abruptly as it came, the Komani barrage ended, and the flying warriors swarmed into the massed Terran vehicles. Vorgens met them with concentrated fire, his dreadnaughts and cruisers sweeping the sky with force beams.
Despite frightful losses, the warriors continued to bore in. They penetrated the energy shield, and began attacking individual vehicles with grenades and missileguns. Vorgens ordered his vehicles to “pop hatches” and allow the crews to meet the attackers with handguns and rifles—much more effective now than the powerful, longrange weapons in the turrets.