Colonel

by Rick Shelley

  It was some hours later before Lon thought, There goes the odds-on favorite for election to General … not that we were likely to make it home in time for him to get it this year. He shook his head. Even if we were going to make it home in time, the Council wouldn’t give it to him this year, not after we lost so many men making our landing here. There’d have to be a board of inquiry first. Even if a board cleared him of misjudgment, losing so many men would remain a mark against Hayley and might keep him from ever becoming General.

  By noon, the fighting had decreased to almost nothing. Parker Watson’s battalion, 4th of the 7th, was skirmishing with the enemy on the outskirts of University City. Vel Osterman’s battalion, 2nd of the 7th, was moving toward the enemy rocket artillery north of the city. Fal Jensen was moving 15th Regiment east to stay between the bulk of the New Spartan forces and the Elysian capital. His 4th Battalion was angling toward the southeast, looking to engage the enemy troops who had moved toward the capital on that end of the perimeter.

  Lon was moving with his remaining two line battalions—closer to University City, staying on the north, ready to move whichever way necessary, depending on how the situation developed through the next hours … or days. He wanted to be able to move into the capital to prevent the two elements of the New Spartan force from linking up inside the metropolitan area. The rocket and howitzer batteries of both heavy-weapons battalions were moving closer to Lon’s 1st and 3rd Battalions. The tanks were moving to reinforce both regiments’ 4th Battalions on the edges of University City.

  Chancellor Berlino and his companions had just landed, without incident, near Lon’s position. Overhead, the two fleets were moving farther apart, and higher, away from Elysium. But not too much higher. Both wanted to stay close enough to use their fighters to support operations on the ground.

  Berlino and the two other Elysian cabinet ministers were escorted to Lon’s command post by two platoons from 7th’s 3rd Battalion. The chancellor appeared quite shaken, his eyes wide, constantly moving, looking around as if he feared attack at every step. Thomas Beoch, the minister for external affairs, and Flora Chiou, the treasurer, simply looked exhausted.

  “I can’t offer you much hospitality,” Lon said. “Sorry. We thought it safer to bring you in well outside the city. Too much chance that the New Spartans would shoot the shuttle down. They have at least a battalion of troops near your main spaceport. They might control it. They’re certainly close enough to shoot down any shuttle trying to land there. Make yourselves as comfortable as you can. Sitting on the ground might not look dignified, but that’s all we have.”

  “I’m not too proud to sit on the grass,” Chiou said. Beoch simply dropped to the ground next to her. Berlino was slower to sit, but that seemed to be just because of his nervousness.

  “I’ve been following the reports from your CIC,” Berlino said when he finally did sit. “Up until we got off the shuttle. Any significant change, Colonel?”

  Lon shook his head. “I wish I could say that there is, Chancellor, but there isn’t. As soon as we can do so safely, we’ll get you into the city, back to your colleagues and families. It appears that, so far, the New Spartans aren’t trying to fully occupy the capital. There aren’t enough of them on that side to manage, not with most of your defense force still active and nearby. Right now we’re not sure if they’re just trying to get as far from us as they can or if they hope to fortify sections of the city to try to hold against us.”

  Berlino nodded slowly. “I was able to follow that much. How do you intend to proceed?”

  “We have three immediate goals on the ground,” Lon said. “We want to neutralize—destroy—their artillery. We need to isolate the troops they have inside University City. And we want to keep those troops and their main force from reuniting, mostly by keeping the main force away from the capital. The artillery and the enemy force inside the city will be our priorities. After that we can worry about their main force. As long as they’re away from the urban areas, they’re the minor threat, unable to cause major difficulties for your people. We can take our time with them.”

  “I agree,” Berlino said. “Our first concern has to be the enemy force inside University City. Is it possible that they will try to use our civilian populace as … hostages?”

  “Possible but not probable,” Lon said. “I doubt that the New Spartans are much more likely to do that than we would be, and Dirigenters would absolutely not use unarmed civilians as hostages or shields. But you can assume that the New Spartans will deal harshly, and summarily, with anyone they catch or strongly suspect of actively operating against them. Combatant civilians forfeit any special consideration.”

  “Our people will resist, strongly,” Chiou said, lifting her head for the first time. She had been staring at the ground in front of her. “We cherish our independence, and there was intense anger over the invasion from the start. Many of our people will seize any opportunity to strike at the invaders.”

  “I agree,” Berlino said. “There will certainly be acts of resistance, which means that the sooner we can … evict the invaders from the city, the fewer of our people are likely to pay the … ultimate price.”

  “We’re doing our best to keep the enemy too busy to worry much about civilians, Chancellor,” Lon said. “But we’re limited, too, if we want to avoid civilian casualties and excessive damage to buildings and so forth. And we do want to avoid those.”

  “We can repair or replace buildings, Colonel,” Berlino said.

  “People aren’t so easy to replace,” Lon said. “We hate to see lives wasted—civilians, our own, even those of our enemies. We’ll do what we have to do, Chancellor, but as economically as possible.”

  “Speaking of economics, Colonel,” Berlino said, “I will authorize bringing in a third regiment if you think it’s needed. And another fighting ship with its aircraft.”

  “I haven’t decided yet, Chancellor,” Lon said. “I warned Dirigent that it is possible, but …” He shook his head.

  “But what, Colonel?”

  “You know the limits of interstellar travel, Chancellor. It will take a month to get reinforcements in. And if we don’t have enough people here now to do the job, there might not be enough of us left in a month to be an effective fighting force. One regiment might not be enough to do more than cover an evacuation of survivors, and that wouldn’t do your people any good. I know we made provisions in the contract for reinforcement, but the scenario involved was if we arrived and knew right away that the New Spartans had brought in more men, we would have waited in space for our reinforcements, not landed the way we did. The only way I could be … fairly certain of maintaining an effective force for a month would be to simply pull out into the wilds, away from the enemy, to wait for reinforcements. That would give the New Spartans a month to do … whatever they want to your cities and people. We don’t even have a realistic option of returning to our ships to wait. A withdrawal like that might cost another six hundred men, the way the landing did, or more.”

  “Besides, if you pulled away from the enemy, disengaged,” Chiou said, “I doubt that the New Spartans would simply sit around and wait for the next act. We can’t count on their continued willingness to simply lay siege to University City.”

  “There is that,” Lon conceded. “We’ve joined the fight. There’s no way to back off.” No honorable way, he thought. No way that does not concede victory to the New Spartans and relegate us to second-best status.

  In the next hour, Lon moved his command post again, this time to the ruins of a farmhouse. Only the plascrete shell of the house remained intact. The interior had been burned out; the roof had collapsed. Lon’s men cleared out enough of the rubble to let him set up an “office” inside, for what minimal protection it would provide. They checked for mines, booby traps, and electronic snoops, then set up their sentry posts outside.

  “We’re not going to stay here long,” Lon told Phip. “Twenty minutes, tops. Too much chance the New Spart
ans will have this location registered for their artillery.”

  “I was afraid you might have overlooked that possibility,” Phip said. “They drop a high-angle shot inside these walls, the medtechs would have to scrape our remains off the plascrete.” He gestured around. Some of the stains on the walls might have been from the previous occupants.

  “We’ll set up outposts just inside the ring the New Spartans set up, past where they burned everything, but I don’t want to move all our people into the city if we can avoid it. That might tempt the other side to start lobbing rockets in among civilians. We’ll wait for dark to move against the first batch of the enemy in the city, get the ones around the spaceport. While that’s going on, we’ll send the chancellor and his people in under heavy escort. I’ll feel better once they’re off our hands.”

  “You really think we’re going to be able to pull this one off, Lon?” Phip asked, moving closer to Lon, simply whispering with the faceplate of his helmet up halfway.

  Lon glanced around the ruins of the farmhouse. The only other person inside was Jeremy Howell, and he was over near what had been the front door. “We don’t have any choice. We have to pull it off. Somehow. Probably with just what we have here now. Even if I call in another regiment, we’re going to have to do it ourselves.” He shook his head. “Now let me be for a few minutes. I’ve got to see where everyone’s at.”

  Pieces of a puzzle. I don’t have all the pieces, and there’s no cozy holo to tell me what the finished puzzle is supposed to look like, Lon thought as he scrolled across his mapboard, seeing where each of his battalions were and where the enemy units were located. The enemy’s main force was still moving east, doing what they could to stall the pursuit—leaving booby traps and small rearguard units to harass the Dirigenters—apparently looking for sound defensive positions, rather than simply looking for a little space to regroup, or actively trying to consolidate their forces, bring the smaller units back to them.

  That doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense unless they know they’ve got reinforcements coming, Lon thought, shaking his head idly. The farther they go, the more likely it is that they’ve got more assets coming in … and soon. He stared at the chart for a moment, then touched the screen softly. If they go past this point, they must know they have help on the way. It was an arbitrary decision, with no guarantee that it would have any relationship to reality, but he needed some reference mark to help focus his thinking. Then he turned his attention to the smaller New Spartan elements.

  The New Spartan rocket artillery was still trying to get lost in the wild country to the north, staying under cover of the forests, maintaining electronic silence as far as possible. For the most part they were successful at evading detection. They were moving too fast, and too erratically, for the Dirigenter artillery to knock them out on the rare occasions when they were located. And the infantry of Lon’s 2nd Battalion had not been able to close with the enemy yet.

  The enemy troops who had manned the southwestern arc of the New Spartan line around University City were in the industrial district neighboring the capital’s primary aerospaceport. Parker Watson had his battalion close, moving to keep the New Spartans in place. Vel Osterman was with Watson, taking tactical command of 4th of the 7th and the heavy-weapons units supporting it. Several companies of the EDF were moving into position behind those New Spartans. They were in direct contact with Osterman.

  Fifteenth Regiment had not yet closed with the New Spartans they were chasing—the units that had been on the southeastern end of the perimeter—or scare them into static defensive positions. Fal Jensen had one battalion moving to get between those New Spartans and the most heavily inhabited districts of University City. He was leading the rest of his regiment out on the other flank, hoping to keep the enemy units he was after from turning northeast to rendezvous with their main force.

  And here I sit with two battalions, as far from the fighting as I could get without actually running from it, Lon thought, making a face of disgust. Half a regiment that can’t contribute to any of the battles for at least three hours. That did not feel proper, though he kept telling himself it was. He had three members of the Elysian cabinet with him, and a dozen of their staff people. All had to be turned over safely to their own people, moved inside University City and the defensive lines of the Elysian Defense Force.

  Lon glanced skyward. The dance going on involving the ships and fighters of both sides was another element of the puzzle, one he felt far from qualified to judge, let alone direct. The skipper of Peregrine remained in tactical command of that part of the Dirigenter force. Even when it came to using the Shrike IIs for ground support or attacks on enemy ground forces, Captain Kurt Thorsen—Peregrine’s captain—had to be consulted, not commanded. That was part of the interservice diplomacy between the Corps’ line officers and the officers of its ancillary services. The defense of the ships was Thorsen’s responsibility, and the Shrike II fighters were his first line of defense.

  Lon got to his feet, folded his mapboard, and stuck it in the specially designed pocket on the right leg of his battledress trousers. I can’t see anything better than keeping on the way we’ve been going, he thought, gesturing to Phip Steesen, who had drifted off to the other side of the room. “Let’s get the men up and moving, Phip,” Lon said over their radio link. “We’re not doing any good here chewing our tongues.” Lon alerted the two battalion commanders, then went out of the shell of a house to where the Elysians were sitting together.

  “We’ve got to get moving again. Sorry the rest couldn’t have been longer,” he told them. “With a little luck, we’ll get you back to your people tonight. If nothing else goes wrong.”

  “Don’t worry about us,” Berlino said, the first of the Elysians to get to his feet. “We’ll manage.” He seemed less nervous than before, as if all he had needed to collect his wits were a few minutes to rest. He gestured to hurry his compatriots to their feet. “We can all do with the exercise, in any case.”

  Moving half a regiment was not as simple as moving a platoon or a company. It was not just scale, but growing complexity as the number of levels increased, communications and making sure that each subordinate commander knew his unit’s responsibilities and which other units were responsible for other necessities. The two battalions with Lon were spread out over more than half a square mile. Even for a short break they had moved into a defensive perimeter, no one completely relaxing, no one forgetting that there were hostile soldiers about—and the possibility of rocket attack with very little warning. Now, flankers were put out on both sides. Platoons were put out in front to scout the line of march and warn of any ambush. One company waited to follow the rest as rear guard. This time the rotation of duties put Junior’s company from 1st Battalion behind the rest, split in two elements, covering both lines of march.

  Lon was very near the geographical center of the strung-out formation, with his headquarters detachment, the men forming a loose shield around him. Phip Steesen was near the front of this inner formation. Torrey Berger was near the rear. In the middle, only Jeremy Howell was especially close to the regimental commander. He always stayed close to Lon. Two squads of troops flanked them. The Elysians were not far behind, with their own squads of bodyguards.

  Several times in the next hour, the entire formation came to a halt when the point squads spotted possible mines or booby traps. Those had to be checked out carefully and the real explosives detonated or inactivated before the march could start again. Electronic snoops—left to report on troop movements—were also deactivated, destroyed, when they were found.

  On the march, Lon moved just like any private under his command—rifle at the ready, finger resting over the trigger guard, his eyes sweeping from side to side, looking for any possible threat. That there was little chance of any enemy getting close to him mattered little. He felt no lessening of the tension he had always felt in a potential combat situation, though he handled it far better than he had as a young man. There
was always a chance of trouble—a sniper, a booby trap that had somehow been missed by everyone else, anything.

  At the same time, he was kept busy with the demands of command, keeping track of his far-flung units, receiving updates from Jensen and his own battalion commanders and from CIC. The one good thing about the sheer volume of communications was that it gave him no time to worry about his own physical well-being … or that of his only son, now about five hundred yards north of him, in the rear guard.

  That was where the trouble came.

  15

  Lon heard a crackling sound like wood burning in a fireplace, distant and faint, but he recognized the sound for what it was: automatic gunfire. He had heard it often enough over the years. Seconds later, he took a call from Captain Jaz Taiters, commander of D Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Regiment—D-1-7 in military shorthand. Taiters was a nephew of Arlan Taiters, the lieutenant who had mentored Lon through his stint as an officer cadet … and who had been killed on Lon’s first combat contract. Jaz also was Junior’s company commander.

  “We’re being hit on the left, Colonel,” Taiters reported, his voice well under control. “Sounds like maybe two platoons. They were already firing before they switched on electronics, so we didn’t have any warning. I guess they infiltrated after everyone else went by. Doesn’t seem possible they could have been sitting there for long and not been spotted.”

  “Can you handle them alone, or do you need help?” Lon asked, fumbling his mapboard out of its pocket.

  “If we’ve got anyone close, I wouldn’t turn down help,” Taiters said, “but I think we can handle them alone if we have to. I do have four men down already, and they’re gonna need medical help in pretty short order.”

  Lon bit off the question he wanted to ask, about Junior. “Have your men keep their heads down. I’ll order an artillery strike. I have the positions of your opposition on the mapboard. Can you tell if any of your wounded are in critical condition?”