D. MacHale - The Soldiers of Halla

“One down,” Courtney said. “Bring ‘em on.”

As if following her orders, two more gigs flew out of the cloud of dust and smoke, headed for the Black Water waterfall. Both were loaded with missiles. Both met the same fate. Two more spectacular crashes followed, creating multiple infernos on the valley floor.

“Listen,” Kasha called out. “The explosions have stopped.”

I had been concentrating so intently on the gigs that I didn’t realize the distant thunder from the explosions on the far mountain had ended.

“What do you think that means?” Boon asked. “Were the other gigs taken down too?”

Courtney put her finger to her ear to listen to her link radio. She smiled.

“Seven gigs down,” she reported. “Including the three that made it into the valley. The spotters went back and took them down. Unbelievable. You want to talk about bravery? Those guys had to fire on the gigs while all hell was raining down on them.”

“Are there more?” I asked.

Courtney listened, and shook her head. “No. They’re done. We got them all. Wait-”

It wasn’t time to celebrate. Courtney’s dark look told me that much. She listened intently to the report that was coming in over the link radio. As she concentrated, I looked to the far mountain. The smoke was starting to dissipate. It wouldn’t be long till we would see how much damage the klees had done before their helicopters were put out of business. Kasha and Boon joined me at the front of the platform. We all gazed across the valley floor, straining for a glimpse of what the gig attack had accomplished.

“Question is,” I said, “did they finish the road?”

The wind picked up, blowing away the rest of the debris in the air. What we saw made my mouth go dry. There was a very clear, wide gap cut through the mountain. In the few short minutes that the klees had been targeting the mountain, they had succeeded in blasting out a wide chasm. I now realized why the second wave of gigs had started across the valley. It wasn’t to escape the gars who were firing on them from below. It was because their destruction of the first mountain pass was complete.

“They’re coming,” Courtney declared. “The klee army is on the march. We don’t have enough gar shooters over there to stop them. They can’t protect such a wide entryway.”

“Is there anything we can do?” I asked lamely.

“Yeah,” Courtney answered. “We can hope that the rest of the klees are dados.”

How twisted was that? The last, best hope to save Black Water would be if the klees had blundered and sent a dado army to attack. The gar radio cannons could stop them. What they couldn’t stop were flesh-and-blood klees. As much as the gars had anticipated and prepared for a battle, they never expected that the klees would be able to flood so many warriors at them at once. They were hoping to pick them off one by one as they came through the narrow pass. But the pass wasn’t narrow anymore. It was wide enough for thousands of klees at a time to march through.

“What if they’re not dados?” Kasha asked.

Courtney shrugged. She looked grim. “We have one last chance after that to keep them in the valley. If that fails and they break through into Black Water, I know the gars will fight until the end, but I don’t think they’ll stand a chance. Both the gars and the Yanks are dedicated. Confident, even. They believe that they will be able to stop anything that is thrown at us, but I think that’s more bravery speaking than common sense. If the klees get into Black Water, it’ll be a bloodbath. We’ve got to stop them right here.”

The wait was killing me. It all came down to this. When the klee army emerged from the newly formed passage into the valley, would they be sending dados or klees? It felt odd to be rooting for dados.

The smoke cleared entirely, giving us an unobstructed view of the valley below. The three gigs burned where they’d crashed. I didn’t see a single survivor. I also didn’t see any gars on the valley floor. I assumed they were all in hiding, waiting for the klee army to appear. It was tense as all hell. I couldn’t imagine how the gars who were waiting below felt. They had no way of knowing this, but they were not only going to fight to protect Black Water, but this battle would determine the future of all existence. It was just as well they didn’t know.

I wondered how many of the defenders below were exiles from Second Earth. The Yanks. It didn’t surprise me that they had put in with the gars and were all working together to protect Black Water. These were the people who had stood up to Alexander Naymeer and his Ravinians on Second Earth. They paid for their beliefs by being sucked into a flume and banished from their home. They could have landed on Eelong and given up. Instead, they rallied and created a new and better Black Water. It was no surprise to me, knowing the kind of people they were, that they were willing to put their lives on the line to protect it. Uncle Press explained to us that it was their spirit that was keeping Solara alive. Seeing the work they had done, the sacrifices they had made, and the bravery they’d shown here on Eelong made me understand it fully. These people were special. I truly believed they could be the foundation upon which Halla would be rebuilt.

If they survived.

“They’re here,” Courtney said softly.

She held up her binoculars to get a better look at the wound in the mountain. She didn’t have to bother. We could all see it plain enough with the naked eye. At first it seemed like a wave of red blood flowing out of the cleft in the mountain. It took only a few seconds to realize what it really was. Moving forward, filling the width of the gap, was an army of klees carrying red Ravinian flags. There were hundreds of the flags, snapping in the wind, headed into the valley as if in triumph. I was amazed at the bold move. They weren’t being defensive. It didn’t look as if they even had weapons. Did they seriously think the battle was already won?

The wave continued. Line after line of klees marched forward in lockstep, flags waving as they descended into the crater that was the valley of waterfalls.

“We’ll know soon,” Courtney announced. “If they’re dados, they’re walking into a kill zone. If not-” She gave me a grave look.

The mass of flag-bearing klees ended. They were followed by klees wearing the uniform of Leeandran soldiers. These guys carried the weapons I had seen the foragers use. From far away they looked like they were carrying flagpoles with no flags, but I knew they were the wooden staves that would be used to crack heads. They would also have the three-stone bolas that they threw at gars to tie up their legs. The sick thing is that they weren’t coming in to obliterate the gars. This was a roundup. Sure, gars would go down, but I believe their mission was to capture as many as possible. Those trucks we saw weren’t carrying weapons. They were here to take the gars back to Leeandra for the klees’ barbaric feasts. I wondered what their orders were. How aggressive were they going to be? There was no way that the gars or the exiles would go without a fight.

“What have the gars been told?” I asked Courtney. “I mean, if it comes to a close-in fight, what will they do?”

“You mean what’s going to happen if it looks like we’re losing?” she asked.

I nodded.

“There will be no prisoners,” she said with certainty. “One way or the other, this will be a fight to the death.”

As fatalistic a thought as that was, it made perfect sense. If I had to choose between dying in battle or being rounded up and put into a cage and held until I was slaughtered for food, I know the decision I’d make. Surrender was worse than suicide.