Doctor Who_ St. Anthony's Fire - Mark Gatiss [50]
‘I want answers, Maconsa. How many can we get into the trenches?’
Maconsa shrugged. ‘Walking wounded, around twenty I suppose. And about thirty five on active service.’
Grek’s scalp contracted as an affirmation.
‘All right. I want you to get as many as you can in a fit condition to fight. And before you ask, I don’t know what they’ll be fighting. I just want them to be ready.’
Maconsa smiled. This was the Grek he knew and remembered before the weary inertia of war had eroded his soul. He saluted crisply. ‘Right away, sir.’
Grek dismissed him with a gesture. Maconsa left the conference room, feeling a new vigour flooding through him. He rounded the corner and, with surprising ease, clambered up the rickety wooden ladder of Number Seven onto the surface.
It was completely dark now and the rings blazed spectacularly in the sky like forks of frozen lightning. Maconsa could feel a strange, disquieting rumble very deep in his bones. Thoss’s doom‐laden prophecy refused to go away. The old man had not elaborated, merely repeating over and over that the planet was dying.
Well, be that as it may, Maconsa was first and foremost a soldier. And bold recognizable military thinking was the greatest solace he knew. If he could organize the wounded into an efficient fighting team then at least he would feel he was contributing something.
He ploughed through the muddied ground which was still steaming from the meteorite impacts. Reaching the lip of the trench he swung himself over and began to descend. His face was set with a kind of fiery intensity. Perhaps this terrible war might prove to have meant something after all.
Maconsa was on the fourth rung of the ladder, his face already turned towards the trench, when a bullet spat out of the darkness and punched a big black hole through his leathery throat.
He stood very still for a long moment, blood fountaining from his neck, and then toppled forwards into the trench, vanishing into the filthy brown water.
His greatcoat blossomed like a huge lily.
At once, the night was filled with a high, almost hysterical battle‐cry as Imalgahite’s Cutch forces screamed out of the jungle, their rifles high above their heads.
On his way towards the ladder hole, Grek heard them coming and was almost knocked off his feet by a knot of soldiers running along the tunnels towards the surface.
‘What’s…?’ he began.
‘Cutch! Cutch!’ someone screeched distantly.
Grek felt faint and sick and strangely exhilarated all together.
‘Get out there!’ he bellowed.
The Ismetch troops sprinted for the ladder.
The air was suddenly filled with gunfire, echoing terrifyingly from every corner of the dug‐out.
Grek knew there could be men in the trenches by now, but if the Cutch forces were sufficiently sized then the Ismetch would soon be overwhelmed.
He dashed back to the conference room and skidded towards the speecher. Snatching it up, he plugged in the instrument and barked hoarsely into the receiver: ‘Now hear this! We are under attack. All units to surface immediately!’
He thought briefly of adding some words of personal encouragement but realized there simply wasn’t time.
Throwing down the speecher, he pulled his pistol from its holster. His crested head shone with sweat in the glow of the gaslight.
If Maconsa had reached the infirmary and managed to galvanize some of the wounded then they might just have a chance. He cursed his own inactivity. The dense jungle terrain had kept the location of the dug‐out secret for so long he had become complacent. An attack was inevitable, he supposed, but why now? Why now when there was so much more at stake?
Grek pelted out of the room and back into the gloom of the tunnels. With Priss and Liso gone, both probably dead, his only remaining officers were Maconsa and Ran.
He breathed deeply. It was up to him now. Finally, all up to him. This was the decisive moment of his command.
He reached the ladder to the surface and immediately threw himself into a corner as a pair of unfamiliar