by Rick Shelley
“There isn’t a lot of current data on the New Spartan mercenaries in our data banks, not specific data,” Parker Watson of 4th Battalion said. “Do we have anything at all on how they’re armed?”
“We don’t have much,” Lon conceded. “They’re as tight about security as we are. I couldn’t find any reliable information on the armament and capabilities of their aerospace fighters. As for the men on the ground, we assume they’ll be equipped about as we are, with one possible exception. One of the reports we have from the people on Elysium says that some of the New Spartans are armed with needle rifles, capable of firing huge quantities of tiny slivers of metal, possibly depleted uranium, at extremely high muzzle velocities. We don’t have reliable confirmation, but it is possible. Our R&D people are working on similar weapons, though it will be a year or more before they’re ready for issue, if the Council of Regiments decides to go into full production.”
More raw data flowed into CIC. Thousands of scenarios were created and critiqued, tweaked, and run through every conceivable variation. As the fleet continued to move toward Elysium, obsolete scenarios were discarded, the remainder graded, the rankings changed with each new influx of data. Lon and Colonel Hayley spent hours linked together with the staff of Peregrine’s CIC. Thirty-six hours after the final Q-space transit, they had narrowed the possible assault scenarios to a manageable dozen, depending on what the New Spartans did in the last hours before the DMC soldiers entered their attack shuttles. Beyond the moment of landing, battle plans had to remain generalized, limited to primary objectives and very elastic timetables. The number of variables quickly became too extreme for precision.
Aboard the troop transports, men recorded letters home. Those were merged on large message chips, ready to be dispatched via MR before the attack began. For some, it might be the last word their families ever would have from them.
10
The day before the landings, Lon spoke to his men. Company by company, he addressed the officers and sergeants through ship-to-ship links, and he recorded messages to the rank and file, individualized for each battalion. The sessions with officers and sergeants were two-way, allowing them to ask questions and receive answers. It also gave Lon a few seconds to speak with his son, though they could do little more than wish each other good luck. The conversation was not private. Aboard Golden Eagle, Lon spoke to officers and men face-to-face in small groups. Those sessions ran longer than the complink hookups. Altogether, Lon spent more than six hours giving his pep talks and laying out the latest version of the plan of attack.
“This may be the hardest day’s work I’ve ever put in,” Lon told Phip Steesen after the last session. “I’d hate to be a politician and have to talk this much every day. Parker Watson is still upset at having his battalion held in reserve. Wouldn’t matter who drew that, the commander would still bitch.”
Phip laughed. “Goes with the territory, I’d say.” The two men were alone in Lon’s office.
“This contract is going to be different from any we’ve been on,” Lon said after a short silence.
Phip snorted. “Sure is. I bet the brass in the Contracts Division are already licking their chops. If we best the New Spartans head-to-head, it gives us a big boost in marketing. Proof we’re the best. More contracts, higher rates.”
For a moment, Lon stared at his lead sergeant and best friend, almost stunned by the comment. Then he burst out laughing. “I knew you were cynical,” he said, “but I never realized just how cynical.”
“Cynical, hell, just looking at it honestly. Tell the truth, Lon, didn’t that get mentioned when you were talking about the contract?”
Lon hesitated before he said, “Not in so many words, but, yes, I guess the implication was there … and the concern that if we were to lose it might cost us future business, send some potential customers to New Sparta. But every contract has that element of risk. Anytime we fail to fulfill a contract we risk losing business to competitors. Anytime we succeed, it gives us a better record to show customers.”
“This is orders of magnitude beyond that, Lon. Dirigent and New Sparta are the two major mercenary worlds, and we’re going head-to-head, in strength. What happens here could affect the economies of both worlds for decades. We can’t afford to let them win; they can’t afford to let us win. Can you imagine what conditions would be like at home if the Corps had to lay off three or four regiments because there wasn’t enough work? What that would do to the economy? Take jobs from fifteen or twenty thousand soldiers and it would mean a lot of lost civilian jobs as well, in Camo Town, in factories, everywhere. More people would be forced to live on basic maintenance in neighborhoods like the Drafts. More crime. On and on.”
“I guess I never thought it that far through,” Lon said after considering what Phip had said. “I’ve just thought about it in terms of a hard job that has to be done … mostly because it is our job, and if we’re not the best, then too many men don’t make it home.”
“I might not have thought of it either,” Phip admitted. “Jenny pointed it out to me, at some length, the night before we left.” Jenny was his wife. She and her brother Kalko had grown up in the Drafts, the closest Dirigent City had to a slum district. “A discussion of the economic necessity of victory wasn’t exactly what I was expecting the night before I shipped out on contract.”
“‘Come home with your shield or on it’?” Lon quoted softly.
“What’s that?”
Lon shook his head. “Ancient history. What the women of the original Sparta, on Earth, supposedly told their men before they went into battle. War was their business, too, in a way.”
“Sparta, a city-state in classical Greece, noted for its military prowess,” Phip recited, showing that he had learned something along the way. “I looked it up once, wondering where the ‘New’ in New Sparta came from.”
“You get to where three hundred Spartans held off an army of a hundred thousand until they were outflanked and slaughtered?”
“Thermo-something?”
Lon laughed. “Thermopylae.”
“All in all, I’ve never been fond of last stands,” Phip said. “No curtain calls, no rematches.”
A short while later, Lon was getting ready to head to the galley for supper when he received a call from Colonel Hayley on Peregrine. “Are you alone there?” was the first thing Hayley said when he saw Lon’s face on his complink screen.
“I’m alone, Bob. Something wrong?” Lon asked. He sat at his desk to get his face on the same level as Hayley’s.
“Not wrong, just something I can’t remember if I mentioned to you before.” Hayley hesitated. Lon thought that he looked troubled. “From right now until this contract is concluded, one way or the other, you and I stay as far apart physically as we can. No face-to-face meetings, nothing that might let the enemy get lucky and take us both out at once. I know we’ve both got capable execs who can take over, but … just the same. Keeping the top commanders separated is sound practice.”
“Sure, Bob. I’ve got no argument with that,” Lon said, thinking, No, you didn’t mention it before, and why do you think it has to be brought up now? Keeping top commanders, or a commander and his second-in-command apart whenever possible on a combat contract was a standard precaution, something that shouldn’t have needed this sort of special mention.
“We stay in contact by complink or radio. My staff and CIC will route everything to your staff. That way, if something happens to me, you can take over at the double, not waste time getting up to speed.” Hayley glanced away, then back.
“No need to borrow trouble, Bob,” Lon said. “Sure, we’re up against professionals, but we’ve got the numbers on them—two to one or thereabouts, not counting the Elysian Defense Force, and if the Elysians have been able to stand up against New Spartans for a month, they’ve got something on the ball, even if the Spartans weren’t given orders to conquer Elysium outright.”
“Just covering all the possibilities, Lon,” Hayley sai
d, attempting to pass it off lightly. But his face didn’t agree with the words. “If our intelligence is right, a New Spartan regiment is about twenty percent larger than one of ours, but you’re probably right. No reason not to think that the landings and initial deployment will go smoothly. I just don’t want to forget anything that might prove important later.”
“Yeah, I know how it goes. We worry about it every contract,” Lon said, going along with Hayley’s rationalization. “Worry so much we don’t get enough sleep. My SMO nags me about it all the time.” I do understand, Lon thought. It could be me. It has been me, many times. He blinked. Have I ever looked that nervous to the people around me? He was afraid that the answer was yes, many times.
“So does mine. One other thing. You get any brilliant ideas, don’t wait to be asked. Hit me with them right away.”
“The only brilliant idea I’ve had lately is for us to keep our heads and butts down so they don’t get shot off,” Lon said.
Bob Hayley managed a weak laugh. It was a good note to end the talk on.
Supper the last night aboard ship was shared with Lon’s staff officers. Although Lon kept trying to direct the conversation elsewhere, the talk kept coming back to the contract, and the combat landings scheduled to take place before dawn. There were traces of jitters, but no more than usual, Lon thought, and everyone was trying to cover their nervousness—with more or less success. That was normal, something Lon saw every time he was leading men into a combat contract.
Men ate past what they were comfortable with, until they couldn’t force another bite. That, too, was standard. Eat when you can; you never know where the next meal is coming from once you’re in combat. Each time, each contract, Lon recalled the way everyone had seemed preoccupied with making him stuff himself, as if he might have been in danger of starvation, even in garrison. Even those who finished eating early did not leave the table. They waited. Lon knew what was expected.
“As long as everyone keeps on their toes and does their job, we should make out all right on Elysium,” he said when it was clear that the few who were still eating were just waiting for him to speak. “We’ve got the manpower advantage, even if the New Spartans are as good as we are, man for man, and we don’t know that they are.” That elicited a few nervous laughs.
“They’ve been on the ground more than a month, doing pretty much what they want, terrorizing civilians and swatting at the Elysian Defense Force. Until we popped out of Q-space they probably had no idea they might have to face the hardest opposition they’ve ever seen. Now they’ve had two and a half days to worry about that, to wonder just what they’ve gotten themselves into.” Two and a half days to plan what they’re going to hit us with when we get in reach, Lon thought. “Their commander is probably looking hard at his contract, trying to find an honorable loophole to let him get his people out relatively intact.”
“They want to run for home, we let them?” Torrey Berger asked, drawing a bigger laugh than Lon had received.
“In a second,” Lon said. “But don’t count on that. They might not have been cautious enough getting escape clauses in their contract.”
“Man’s gotta have a few dreams, Colonel,” Berger said.
“You give up dreaming about women, Torrey?” someone asked from farther down the table.
“Even asleep they slap his face,” someone else contributed. “He can’t stand the rejection anymore.”
Lon smiled and nodded. He couldn’t answer for the line battalions, but his headquarters people were as ready as they were ever going to get.
Lon sat on the edge of his bed. The only light in the cabin came from his complink screen, and that was blank, a dark blue, except for the red numerals of the timeline. Eight hours remained until the scheduled call to board the attack shuttles. Reveille would be in five hours, to give everyone time for one final meal aboard ship. Lon knew he should already be asleep—long since. He had undressed two hours ago. He had a four-hour sleep patch handy. He suspected that he would be forced to use it if he were to get any sleep. Soon … but not quite yet.
They—the New Spartans—could have run as soon as they could make out how many of us there are, he thought. They could have been on their way out-system quickly enough that we couldn’t have caught them. They chose to stay, even though they must realize that they’re outnumbered. Why? That question, rather than personal worries or obsessions, was the one that had kept him awake. This time. He had made his preparations for sleep in plenty of time to allow him eight hours. He had laid out his gear for the morning, recorded additions to his latest letter to Sara and Angie. He had gone back through the main points of the assault plan a couple of times. It was that process that had brought the question to the fore, forcefully. It had come up, in passing, a couple of times during the planning conferences. Staff members had proffered a dozen possible reasons for the New Spartans to remain in place, ready to face a superior force. The simplest and least satisfactory was, “They’re too damned cocky. They think they’re twice as good as we are.” The more likely, and more disturbing, were variations on two related themes. “They know they have heavy reinforcement coming in, soon, and figure they can hold out long enough.” “They have a hole card, some weapon or system we’re not allowing for, something they figure either evens the odds or tilts them in their favor.”
They must hope to be able to knock out a lot of our shuttles before we get on the ground, Lon thought. He did not rule out other possibilities, but that seemed to be the most likely. Knock off as many of us as possible before we can get out of the box. That was the way Lon and his men thought about a combat landing in a shuttle. While they were in the box, the shuttle, they could not defend themselves. A rocket or heavy cannon fire could knock out a shuttle … and everyone inside.
We plan to land far enough from their men on the ground to eliminate—as far as we can—the danger from shoulder-fired SAMs, Lon reminded himself. The plan of attack called for the shuttles to follow routes that kept them away from the lines New Sparta had established around the Elysian capital, coming in well away from the ships in orbit, getting low and following the terrain in, grounding miles from known enemy positions. That would also, theoretically, minimize the danger from enemy aerospace fighters, if they were sent after the landing craft instead of being held to defend the New Spartan ships.
What else is there? What are we missing? Lon asked himself. If anything. He blinked as the timeline on his complink ticked over from one minute to the next. We know how many ships they have, how many men they could possibly have on the ground, how many fighters their weapons platforms can carry. All of the enemy ships would have some armament—missiles and heavy-duty energy weapons, beamers—but those were more defensive than offensive, especially on the transports.
“At least the way we use them,” Lon whispered. The New Spartans had not moved their transports out of harm’s way. They were still in orbit over Elysium, not quite directly above University City. “That may be it.” Lon turned to the complink and typed in a short message to CIC aboard Peregrine, with a copy to Bob Hayley.
“Suggest watching enemy transports closely in case they use their energy and projectile weapons to target our shuttles.”
“It might be a long shot,” Lon whispered as the message was acknowledged by CIC, “but it might be the answer, at least part of it.” This landing could be hairier than any of us wants, he thought as he blanked the complink screen again. We may have to use Shrikes to cover the shuttles regardless of how the enemy uses his fighters.
Lon lay down, finally, but he stared at the overhead for several minutes, hardly blinking, trying to think of any additional steps they might be able to take to protect the troops on their way in. Eventually he shook his head. It was too late, and reveille would come too early. He applied the sleep patch to his neck and barely had time for a prayer before he fell asleep.
Please don’t let me fail my men.
Reveille sounded before the nightmares had time to bu
ild after the patch wore off. Lon had just started to sweat in his sleep.
11
There was no indication of chaos in the morning—actually, the middle of the night—as ten thousand men woke and prepared for the landing. Breakfast was served. The men who were to take part in the initial landing ate as heartily as they could, then returned to the troop bays aboard their transports to give helmets and field gear one final check before putting them on. Helmet electronics were put through diagnostic routines; radio channels were checked. By squad, platoon, and company, the men went to armories to draw weapons and ammunition. Squad leaders inspected their men. Platoon sergeants inspected squad leaders. Company lead sergeants inspected platoon sergeants and officers. Lead sergeants were checked by their commanders. No one would board a shuttle until he had thoroughly inspected his own gear and weapons, and had his judgment confirmed by someone else.
On nine ships, men were ordered to their shuttles. Roll was taken at the hangar door and again once everyone was in their shuttles. The men found their seats and fastened their safety harnesses, each man’s rifle clipped securely to the front of the seat between his legs.
Lon found the routine comforting. The normal demands of launching a combat assault kept him too busy for mental roving. He thought about his family only in passing, instants marked by a quick stab of longing. There was no time for more. Of his men on Golden Eagle, only a few would not be going down in the first wave. Tefford Ives and one platoon from headquarters company would remain behind, with half a dozen technicians who would not be needed at once, to be deployed with the Heavy-Weapons Battalion or 4th Battalion, whichever came first.
He also kept a radio channel open to CIC once he had his battle helmet on. The battlecruisers Agamemnon and Odysseus had each launched half of their Shrike II fighters to engage the enemy’s capital ships and aerospace fighters, holding the rest until the enemy’s reaction could be gauged. They also had started direct fire on the enemy ships with missiles and heavy beamers. The New Spartans were returning fire. They launched two dozen fighters to intercept the Shrike IIs. Both sides had their antimissile defenses ready.