Chapter 774: Lower Port

"Keep the forward guns on that street."

The Imperial commander pointed at the vampires gathered behind the low buildings. The display shook as his ship corrected its position, then steadied enough for him to see men carrying wounded through the opening below.

The two figures who had been fighting above the street now stood near the service yard, both covered in blood.

"The bow batteries are ready," an officer said. "The lower port section isn’t answering."

"Then use what still answers."

A warning flashed beside the firing display.

The officer checked it, then looked back at the commander.

"Our landing craft is crossing that angle."

The commander followed the marked route. A damaged transport rose slowly between his ship and the street he had selected. Its underside was open, with soldiers crowded along the broken edge because there was no room farther inside.

"Hold fire."

The weapon’s charging light dimmed.

Below, another landing craft tried to lift. It rose above the roof beside it, tilted, then sank back into the street.

The bridge filled with overlapping reports.

One ship had lost the ability to keep formation. Another could still fire but could not turn its damaged side away from the ground. The troops they had sent down were gathering at different extraction points, many of which no longer had a transport able to reach them.

With the pale strands gone, the commander finally had room to maneuver. Yet every useful firing line crossed troops or craft he still needed to recover.

"Can the troops form a line south of the breach?" he asked.

The officer checked the reports.

"Not with the units still answering. They can cover the landing zones. Advancing would leave the wounded behind."

The commander stared at the red marks on the ground display.

There were fewer now. The mass that had come out of the breach had broken into scattered groups, but the other vampire force had kept its commanders and its defensive position.

They had survived the thing that caught his ships.

If he ordered another descent, they would be waiting behind walls already filled with the bodies of his first assault.

The vessel that could not turn sent another report. Its crew wanted permission to climb before their failing engines left them stranded within reach of the ground forces.

The commander closed that report without answering it yet.

He could remain and fire until the vampires scattered. He might even kill the two exhausted fighters near the yard. But he could not make his own stranded troops disappear from the streets beneath them, and every ship he kept low had become another position he needed to defend.

"Pull the outer vessels up," he said. "The ones that can still maneuver cover the transports."

The officer turned toward him.

"All ground forces?"

"Get them aboard. No one advances into the vampire position. If they pursue, fire on the approach."

Orders moved across the bridge.

The commander watched one of the low ships begin climbing. Its engines flared unevenly, forcing its neighbor to move aside.

He had arrived to answer an emergency request and found a field full of enemies. Now he would leave them alive. Anyone who saw his damaged ships would know what had happened here.

His jaw tightened.

"Keep recording the ground until we’re clear."

***

Selene saw the first landing craft rise from the street beyond the low buildings.

A vampire beside her lifted his weapon and stepped toward the open road. Selene caught the back of his armor and hauled him against the wall as a transport passed overhead.

"Stay here."

"They’re leaving."

"Yes."

"They killed our people."

Selene looked at the blood on the front of his armor. She had watched him bring one of the wounded back through the corridor, then return for another while the web descended around them.

She could not blame his anger. She had no intention of adding him to the bodies because he thought a departing warship might wait for his sword.

She released his armor.

"If you want something worth lifting that arm for, help me with her."

She pointed to the woman lying beside the nearest bed. The soldier looked from the ascending transport to the patient’s injured leg.

He lowered his weapon and came back to help lift the woman into the space the attendants had cleared. Selene kept one hand beneath the damaged limb while he pulled the folded cloth into place.

The woman made a weak sound when they settled her.

Selene looked up at the soldier.

"Watch her breathing. Call if it changes."

He knelt beside the bed.

Dorian reached them from the direction of the yard. His left arm was wrapped again, and the cloth had already darkened near his wrist.

"They’re taking the troops out," he said. "The ships are covering them."

"Some of ours want to follow."

"I know."

He turned toward the fighters gathering near the road.

"Keep the perimeter. No one follows a transport."

Dorian watched the nearest human craft climb, his grip whitening around his weapon.

"They would like us out from under these walls. I won’t spend another vampire to improve their aim. We bring our people back."

One of the men pointed toward the fallen building farther down the street, and Dorian’s expression changed.

Selene knew which place he meant. A fighter had died there when the web dragged the battle across the corridor. They had been unable to reach his body while carrying the living through.

Dorian looked at the retreating Imperial troops, then toward the opening beside the fallen wall.

"Come with me," he told two of his men. "Watch the roofs. We bring him back, then return here."

Selene let them go.

They could reach the body now without going beneath the ships. It would give the men something to do for their dead, and Dorian would keep them from turning the retrieval into a pursuit.

She moved between the beds.

A nurse from the eastern shelter had begun sorting the newly freed captives from those already waiting for treatment. Some could answer when spoken to. Others lay still despite having no wound large enough to explain their weakness.

The web had taken more than blood from them.

Selene checked the man brought from behind the buildings. He was the one Vesa had asked her to examine while the exchange was still happening.

He was still cold and motionless, and she could find no heartbeat.

She drew a cloth over his face and told the nearest attendant to move the body away from the patients who were still breathing.

Farther along the wall lay the woman the soldiers had carried through the corridor after she died. The withdrawing threads had not changed her either.

Selene stopped beside the next bed.

The woman who had brought the shelter beds through sat on its edge, her staff resting against her injured leg. She held the old man’s wrist while a nurse asked him to move his fingers. He was awake, though his answer came slowly.

The young man who had helped her push the bed stood on the other side. His injured shoulder was bound, and someone had made him rest his arm rather than use it to push another bed.

"We can move them when the road opens?" he asked Selene.

"When we know where they’re going," she said. "Don’t take a bed into the open just because the web is gone."

He looked toward the ships, then nodded.