Blanchez appeared a few minutes later. ‘Lieutenant. The Drookians have pulled back. All of them.’

Minka realised that something had gone terribly wrong. The Drookians had abandoned them, and now there was a platoon of Cadians facing an all-out attack by the Elnaur Chasseurs.

She ran along the lines bundling each of them out of the trenches. ‘Pull back now!’ she ordered. ‘Back to the beaches!’

As Minka paused to check she had everyone, a carapace-armoured Chasseur appeared in the trench to her left. He got three wild shots off at her before her power-sabre plunged through his breastplate. There was a crackle of blue, eldritch light, a thread of smoke from the armour and then the stink of burning flesh. She pulled the blade out and shot her pistol into the face of the next.

It was worse than she had thought. The whole position had been compromised.

Baine tried to bring the heavy bolter with him. ‘Leave it!’ she shouted.

‘Throne I will!’ he hissed. He ripped it down from the firing step and held it waist high, and fired. He staggered under the weight of it. Minka ran with him, pistol ready.

Both sides of the trench were already overrun. Las-bolts flared red about them as they took the tracks that led towards the beach. The lie of the land meant they had to clamber up the ridge before they could drop down, their backs exposed as they did. Two of Elhrot’s squad were shot. Minka tried to get them up, but they were both dead.

All the time they could feel the Chasseurs gaining on them. ‘We’re going to have to fight,’ Minka said.

She and Baine stopped at the end of a trench and fired, but the truth was the Chasseurs were on either side of them. The pressure of numbers was starting to tell. There was no way she and Baine could hold them all off.

Six

SIX

By the time Minka got to the edge of the cliffs the last evacuation boats had already pushed off. They were a quarter of a mile away by now, the wakes behind them widening, already diminishing. ‘Hey!’ Minka shouted and waved her hands. It was still ten minutes until their scheduled evacuation time.

A sniper’s las-bolt flared over her head.

She ducked. They had to get off the clifftop. They were sitting ducks here.

Below them were the beaches where Second Company had come ashore. Their scaling chains were still hanging down the cliff face.

‘Down!’ Minka ordered. ‘There might be a boat or something down there. Quick!’

She crouched as she bundled the others down before her. She risked a look back the way they had come. A squad of Chasseurs were running forward. They were giddy with victory and had not seen her. Minka hurried the last of her platoon down the chains, and then slid over the edge herself.