“Fall back! They’re coming over the edge! Fall back!”
Garroway had dropped his own overheated LR-2120 and picked up Jennings’s weapon, the cables still attached to the backpack of the dead Marine. Now, though, the order had come to fall back from the rim of the pyramid roof. He didn’t want to leave Jennings’s body…but he couldn’t handle that and both weapons as well.
The Ahannu warriors were nearly at the top of the pyramid, scrambling ever higher despite devastating losses to their ranks. He could see their huge, golden eyes shining in the red light as they climbed. To his left Garroway sensed a wild, swirling struggle as the Frogs reached the top and began spilling onto the paved rooftop of the pyramid, grappling hand-to-hand with the defenders.
He triggered another couple of bursts into the Ahannu god-warrior horde, then tried to wrestle with Jennings’s body. Shit, this wasn’t going to work.
“I’ve got him.” Sergeant Dunne stooped, grabbing the body by the handhold on the back of Jennings’s power pack, and started dragging him across the pavement. Garroway picked up his own laser, checked temperature and power supply, then backed up alongside Dunne, covering the other Marine as he retrieved the body.
Marines did not leave their own behind, whenever that was humanly possible.
The Ahannu reached the north edge of the pyramid roof and started scrambling over the rim, hundreds of them, most waving scythe-tipped lances, elaborate war clubs, or curved-bladed iron swords. Many carried black and red banners, while a few had gauss guns.
One Ahannu god-warrior in green and black leather armor brandished a particularly grisly trophy—a mutilated human head spiked on the end of a long spear, the mouth and empty eye sockets gaping. It must, Garroway thought, be the head of one of the Marines lost yesterday inside An-Kur, when the Frogs overran the relay inside one of the tunnels and killed the people guarding it.
Or…was that the preserved head of one of the Marines who’d died defending the Legation compound ten years ago? Either way, it was one reason why Marines did not abandon even their dead. Furious, he triggered his 2120, sending a burst of coherent light through the Ahannu’s armor and setting it ablaze. The Frog shrieked and fell backward off the edge, dropping its trophy into the crowd of its comrades.
And there was another trophy, of sorts…an Ahannu wearing a Marine-issue power pack and awkwardly lugging a Sunbeam LR-2120 in splayed, six-fingered hands. Half a dozen Marine lasers cut that warrior down before it had a chance to fire.
The Ahannu, obviously, were technical enough to be able to use captured Marine weapons, though it seemed a bit reckless of them to risk losing them again in front-line combat. Maybe they were getting desperate, throwing everything they had into a do or die effort.
Well, the Corps could play that tune as well. Slowly, begrudging every step, the Marines fell back across the top of the pyramid, continuing to rake the oncoming enemy with volley upon volley of laser, plasma gun, and smart-grenade fire. As their perimeter contracted, they began crowding one another, armored shoulders bumping shoulders as they created a solid and unbroken wall of polylaminate Mark VII armor. They backed to the place where a portion of the roof had caved in and swiftly began dropping down onto the canted stone blocks, using the crater and broken slabs as cover as they continued to burn down the charging Ahannu god-warriors.
There was no place else to go.
Kneeling in the crater, his laser dangerously overheated, Garroway kept firing. He’d switched to single shot when his breech core temperature redlined and his coolant reserve began steaming, but he knew he didn’t have many shots left before the weapon malfunctioned.
He had two magazines of smart grenades left. He snapped one into the magazine receiver and chambered a round.
The Ahannu god-warriors rushed forward, keening their shrill battle cries….
Captain Warhurst
Pyramid of the Eye
New Sumer, Ishtar
1650 hours ALT
“Dragon Nest, Dragon Nest, this is Suribachi,” Warhurst called over the command channel. “Come in, Dragon Nest!”
“Suribachi, Dragon Nest. Go ahead.” It was the colonel’s voice.
Warhurst stood on the steeply canted slab of cut stone, balanced on the edge of the crater atop the Pyramid of the Eye. The Ahannu and their human slave-warriors were scant meters away, rushing the Marine perimeter from north, west, and south.
“Dragon Nest, they have us pushed into a pocket. We’re taking heavy casualties. Request air strikes, repeat, air strikes in close support of this position.”
“We copy that, Suribachi. Our air reports it’s hard to see what’s happening up there. They don’t want to cause friendly fire casualties. Over.”