Free B00BPJL400 EBOK by Taylor Anderson

sailors, but all were veterans now. The heaps of festering Grik corpses, packed so thick that even the rain couldn’t subdue the stench, lapped against every part of the line and grimly testified to that. General Rolak felt secure.
    Somehow, General Pete Alden, onetime Marine sergeant aboard the lost USS
Houston
on another, different earth, and now General of the Armies and Marines of the Grand Alliance, had managed to wring order from the chaos of disaster. He—and Keje, Alden supposed—had lost the port city of Madras, and his northern component of the Allied Expeditionary Force had been cut off from most lines of convenient support. In the confusion of that month-old battle, III Corps, under General Faan-Ma-Mar, had slashed its way up from the south against scattered, surprised resistance, and his force was much appreciated, but it had been a costly move. Now Alden’s
three
savaged corps were as effectively surrounded as Colonel Billy Flynn’s scratch division beyond the Rocky Gap had been, and Flynn’s force had ultimately been all but annihilated. But Pete had more defensible terrain; secure internal lines of communication; and more troops, artillery, and mortars than Flynn enjoyed on his crummy, rocky hill. There was an elasticity of depth, and the Grik had difficulty moving through the dense forest to mass against the formidable defenses he’d established, defenses Flynn never had the time, troops, or equipment to emplace. The lake in the center of the perimeter also meant Pete had a ready “airfield” for almost seventy PB-1B Nancy floatplanes that could provide air support. Perhaps most important, he’d secured most of the baggage intended to support an extended campaign. The AEF was in . . . decent shape.
    For now,
Pete Alden reminded himself darkly, checking his water-beaded watch in the lamplight of the CP tent. He was amazed the thing still worked. The case was badly corroded and the wristband had been replaced twice now when the leather rotted off his wrist.
For now,
he almost sighed. Only forty of his plucky Nancys were actually airworthy, and all had seen a lot of action with limited maintenance. Most came from the shattered carrier
Salissa
, and had been through a lot before they ever arrived, unable to return to their badly damaged ship. Fuel, spare parts, bombs—everything heavy that took up space aboard the meager but gradually more frequent supply flights was in short supply. All fresh supplies came from Ceylon—still in Allied hands—or via TF
Arracca
, which lurked offshore, from Andaman Island. It was a vital but rickety logistics train, stretched to the absolute limit.
    The planes and their pilots were just as exhausted as the rest of Pete’s army after months of almost constant combat, and there was no end in sight. Still, in the Lemurians that made up his army, from such diverse places and even cultures, he had the best troops he could want, and a good position to defend. But the swarming—unnervingly more professional—Grik host he faced was too numerous, and frankly too damn good, for Pete to consider any unsupported offensive action, and it galled his soul. Worse, for right or wrong, Pete still thought the whole situation was mostly his fault.
    “It’s almost time,” he told his staff, also waiting in the shelter of the tent. “Anything from the lookouts?”
    “No Gen-er-aal Aal-den,” replied a stocky ’Cat hunched over the wireless receiver, an assistant methodically turning a hand generator.
    “If we can’t fly in this muck, Grik zeppelins sure can’t,” the young, blond Lieutenant Mark Leedom said, nodding at the sky. Leedom had been a torpedoman, but had become one of the hottest pilots they had.
    “But we
do
fly in it, Lieutenant,” Pete disagreed. “We have to.” He shrugged. “Maybe not combat missions, but without the supply runs, we won’t last long—and we’re losing a lot of planes and pilots just bringing in the beans and bullets.”
    “Stuff