Colonel

by Rick Shelley

  Seventh Regiment’s 4th Battalion had less than a minute’s warning before the New Spartan missiles started exploding among them. The Elysian troops behind the port had virtually no warning at all. There were no direct communications channels between Peregrine and the EDF units. More than half the rockets targeted that section of the encirclement.

  “Lon, they’re making a breakout!” Tefford Ives shouted over the noise of a pair of secondary explosions—somewhere near him. “Right through whatever’s left of the Elysians on the far side, moving a little south of east. There’s not one chance in hell that we can head them off on the ground.”

  “Easy, Teff,” Lon said. “Get me a report on our casualties as quickly as you can. Leave enough people to take care of the wounded, then pursue the New Spartans. I’ll move the two companies from 1st Battalion to intercept.” While he talked, Lon scrolled the view on his mapboard and increased the magnification to give him a better view of the area between Captain Taiters and the fleeing New Spartans. It looked as if it might be a tight race. Lon switched radio channels and gave Jaz Taiters his new orders, then switched back to talk with Ives again.

  “It’s going to take an hour to get those two companies moved, and I’m not sure that’ll be fast enough. I’ll have the rest of the regiment moving in fifteen minutes, sliding in on the side. If the enemy looks as if they’re going to try to move deeper into University City, you’ll have to try to get around on their south, force them to keep going east, or even northeast.”

  “Should we just start angling that way now? Keep them from even trying?” Ives asked.

  “No.” Lon shook his head, even though there was no way Ives could see the gesture. “You do that and they’re liable to double back to the west and get out of range of interception. We’ll have to wait until I get the troops here close enough to make it impossible for those New Spartans to move in that direction. Get on with Parker and get his battalion moving as quickly as you can. Coordinate with the Elysian units you’ve been working with. I’ve got to get things started here.”

  Lon spent five minutes giving orders to company and battalion commanders, and setting up missions for his artillery—as much to slow down the escaping New Spartans as to cause casualties. There might be as much as a battalion and a half of New Spartans trying to get out of the pocket, twelve hundred men. Half of Lon’s 1st Battalion and all of 3rd were ready to move in less than ten minutes. The advance scouts had already started along the routes that the six companies would follow. Lon’s headquarters detachment formed and moved onto the line of march.

  “They sure don’t seem to know how to give up,” Phip Steesen said on his private link to Lon.

  “Maybe they’ve decided that they don’t have to defeat us completely to fulfill their contract,” Lon said. “Maybe the commander of the New Spartans has convinced himself that all he has to do is demonstrate to the Elysians that they’re vulnerable even with outside help—unless it’s the Confederation’s help. Make the Elysians too frightened to say no, which must have been their original mission in any case.”

  “You mean, even if we beat the New Spartans it might not be enough?” Phip asked.

  “That might be what the New Spartans think. I don’t think that’s the case myself. I think our employers are too set on maintaining their independence, no matter the price.” I hope, Lon thought. Otherwise this whole exercise is a waste.

  The lights went out in University City. There had been no blackout during the weeks that the Elysians had waited for the Dirigenters to appear out of Q-space. The locals had tried to keep everything as normal as possible. Now, though, the lights went out—not all at once, as if all power had been cut, but gradually, over ten or fifteen minutes, as the message circulated from one neighborhood to the next. Lon saw the lights go out a floor at a time, top to bottom, on one of the three tallest buildings in the Elysian capital. He wasn’t certain what the structure was, but thought it was the main building on the university campus. The urban glow faded quickly.

  The point squads on the two columns set a fast pace, and Lon did nothing to slow them. Use the night. It doesn’t last forever. He felt a prickling sensation at the back of his neck, the anticipation of action, the almost subconscious thought that he himself might get close to the front in the next firefight. Anticipation, almost a perverse eagerness for battle—something he had not felt since he was an officer cadet out to prove himself and win his lieutenant’s pips. When he realized that, his pace faltered for a second. He almost stumbled.

  That’s crazy, he told himself. This is just another job that has to be done, not the spring dance back at The Springs. The Springs was the unofficial name of the military academy of the North American Union, back on Earth, where he had almost become an officer. He would have, too, and perhaps never left the planet of his birth, except for a political decision to commandeer the top graduates of his class for duty in the federal police, suppressing the dissident poor in their urban circuses—ghettos—putting down riots with maximum violence and hunting out those who might foment future difficulties. Might. As an idealistic young cadet, Lon had considered that career revolting—as had others, including the commandant of The Springs, who had helped Lon and a few others escape the onerous duty.

  Maybe some of those others are in the New Spartan force, Lon thought, and the notion was startling. None of the other cadets who had used the commandant’s disciplinary scam to escape duty in the NAU’s federal police had come to Dirigent with him, though at the time Lon had understood that Dirigent was to be the destination for all of them.

  Not too likely, I guess, not after all these years, he told himself. He took a deep breath and looked around. It’s been too long. Even if some of them did go to New Sparta, the odds are against any of them still being on active duty, more so against even one of them being here, across the lines from me. That would be too much of a coincidence.

  His momentary distraction was ended by a call from CIC. The latest estimate was that two-thirds of the New Spartan rocket launchers had been destroyed by counter-battery fire following the barrage that had let the enemy that had been hemmed in around the port break out. Two-thirds of the launchers that had taken part in that attack, CIC qualified. More hopeful than certain, the duty officer in CIC added, “They can’t have many more rockets available for the launchers they still have, not with all they’ve expended since we’ve been here.”

  “Don’t let that hope blind you to what they might have,” Lon cautioned. “They haven’t started waving white flags yet.” He didn’t hesitate long enough to get a reply. “Sorry, that was uncalled for. I know you won’t quit watching.”

  Lon kept his men on the march for an hour and a half—covering nearly five miles—before he permitted a five-minute rest. He sat with his back against a tree trunk and pulled out his mapboard. He had been receiving frequent updates from his subordinate commanders as well as from CIC. Now he needed to look at the chart to help him fix all of the changes in his head.

  The main enemy force had stopped moving and appeared to be setting up and reinforcing defensive positions—even if they only intended to remain in them for a few hours, long enough to give their men a chance for a little sleep. The smaller force to the southeast was still moving, trying to angle north, hoping to rendezvous with the main force … but unable to because of the battalion from 15th Regiment between them. The force that had broken out of the trap around the port was also moving east, but leaving skirmishers and booby traps to slow pursuit. That was where the only real fighting had been going on. To the north, Lon’s 2nd Battalion had come across the remains of four rocket launchers and several dozen dead soldiers. There was evidence that some of the enemy had survived and were continuing to move away, north and east, but not obviously on a route designed to rendezvous with the main New Spartan force.

  Phip Steesen sat next to Lon. Phip laid his rifle across his legs after checking to make certain that the safety was on, then lifted the faceplate of his visor. �
�They get off into the wilds, we might chase them for months and never be able to force the issue,” he said when Lon also raised his faceplate. “Time for them to get reinforcements in or force the issue up top. Whatever.” Phip shook his head.

  “That’s okay,” Lon said. “If we can get them all away from the city, past the main farming belt, and far enough in the wild to let the Elysians get back to business as usual, we’ve got the time. Three months, six, even longer. Keep the New Spartans occupied until the General can send another regiment and a fighting ship or two. If it comes down to it, Dirigent has more resources to call on than New Sparta does—men, ships, and everything else.”

  “Yeah, but even Elysium doesn’t have bottomless pockets,” Phip said. “And I doubt their patience will be endless either. You think we’re going to be able to bottle up that one batch of the enemy yet? The ones who broke out from the port.”

  Lon tilted his mapboard so Phip would be able to see it clearly. “I’m not sure. Right now I’ll be happy if we can make them keep moving on their current route. If they take a right turn and head into the city, then we could have more serious problems. They’re only two miles from the main campus of the university. If they get in there, the Elysians will really get their tail feathers ruffled.”

  “Can we stop them?”

  “It’s close, too damned close. The EDF is on that side, about six hundred men, doing what they can. Parker can get maybe two companies in the way, and we’re still using our artillery to harass the New Spartans, but they’re zigzagging enough that we can’t be too … profligate with the artillery. Too much chance of destroying Elysian buildings now that they’re right on the edge of the urban district, and I’m not sure that all of the civilians are out of that area.”

  “The way we’re moving here, we might force the New Spartans farther into the city,” Phip said. His finger moved across Lon’s mapboard, tracing the route. “If I were commanding that unit of New Spartans, I’d sure as hell want to get out of our way.”

  “That boxes them in, sooner or later,” Lon said. “They’ve already shown they don’t like boxes. They’re like us, Phip. They want to be where they can maneuver, where they have freedom of movement.” Lon tilted his visor down just enough to view the timeline on its display. “Speaking of movement, it’s time for us to get on our feet again.”

  “Yeah, I’d better get back where I belong.” Phip got to his feet and pulled his faceplate into place, then jogged toward his position fifty yards away.

  Lon was slower to get to his feet, using his rifle to help him. We can’t go forever without taking more time for rest, he thought, shaking his head. That forty-minute nap he had taken seemed weeks ago, and he doubted that many of his men had managed much more sleep than he had. Some of them had probably had much less, and a few—especially among his junior officers and noncoms—likely wouldn’t have had any. Not yet, he told himself after giving the order to start moving again. We can’t afford the time until we either catch this batch of the enemy or drive them away from the city.

  It was 0300 hours. The left-hand column was stopped again. The platoon on the point had run into an ambush set by a squad or two of New Spartans. Jaz Taiters was moving the rest of his company up to finish the firefight as quickly as possible. It gave the other companies in the two columns a couple of minutes to rest—though everyone remained alert in case there were more of the enemy nearby hiding, ready to pounce.

  Lon did not sit this time, but rested on one knee, using his rifle to help keep his balance while he waited for Taiters’ company to finish the firefight. Rotate them off the point when it’s done, he told himself. Give them a break. Rotate the point on the other side, too. He tried to focus on the few reports he could hear on the radio, eavesdropping on the platoon frequency to get some sense of what was going on. Hear the sounds of fighting, the rifle fire that occasionally sounded like strings of small firecrackers going off in quick succession. Mostly he tried not to think about Junior. It had been one of his two platoons on point, though he had been farther back with the other platoon—which had quickly moved to support the first—when the ambush was sprung.

  “Captain! The lieutenant’s been hit. He’s down!”

  The words hit Lon like a hard blow to the gut. The first coherent thought that came after that was, Not Junior; the other lieutenant, but it was a vain hope. At the moment, Lon couldn’t recall the name of the other lieutenant in Junior’s company. He held his breath, waiting for something else … and dreading what it might be.

  “How badly is he hurt?” Lon recognized Jaz Taiters’ voice.

  “I don’t know. The medtech just got to him.” That was one of Junior’s platoon sergeants. There seemed to be an impossibly loud rushing noise in Lon’s ears. “I’ve got two other men down, too; one of them dead.”

  “Hang on, we’re in position.”

  Over the radio, Lon could hear a sudden massive increase in the amount of gunfire. That lasted for nearly a minute, and when it ended, there was … something approaching total silence.

  What’s going on?! Lon’s mind screamed at him. It took total concentration to keep from yelling over the radio for news about his son. He didn’t even notice that he had gotten to his feet and taken a couple of steps in the direction of the firefight—half a mile away. It must have been another two minutes before Lon received a call from Jaz Taiters.

  “Junior’s been hurt, Colonel,” the captain reported. “The medtech says he should be okay. They’re moving him to a trauma tube now.”

  Lon did not acknowledge the message. His knees buckled under him and he fell, the weight of his combat pack pulling him over backward. He hit the ground hard, butt first, stunned, but did not quite lose consciousness.

  17

  The flush of embarrassment was worse than anything else. His fall had knocked the air out of him, but as soon as he recovered from that—twenty seconds or less—he started to get back to his feet. It was not quickly enough for him to escape notice. Frank Dorcetti and Jeremy Howell were both at his side before he could stand, and Lon saw Phip hurrying toward them as well.

  “I’m okay,” Lon said as Dorcetti and Howell moved to support him. “I just lost my balance and fell. Nothing’s hurt.” Nothing but pride.

  “Maybe you’d better let a medtech check you out anyway,” Howell said. “I knew a guy got a concussion falling that way.”

  Lon took a deep breath and closed his eyes for an instant. “The medtechs have enough to do with real casualties. I’m okay.”

  By that time Phip had arrived, and Lon had to tell him the same thing. “I’m okay. Come on. We’ve got work to do. First Battalion has squashed that ambush. Get the companies moving again. Everyone back in place.”

  Howell and Dorcetti moved away from the colonel, but Phip didn’t. “I heard about Junior,” Phip said softly, with his visor up so his words weren’t transmitted. One of Junior’s platoon sergeants had called Phip directly. He had also received an update from the medtech. “His wounds aren’t life-threatening. They’ve got him stabilized and on his way to a trauma tube.”

  Lon nodded abruptly. “I know, Phip. He’ll be okay, and so will I. We can’t let this interfere with what we’ve got to do.” His voice sounded harsh, but Phip just nodded and headed back toward his own position in the line of march.

  We can’t let this interfere, Lon told himself as he watched Phip move away. He felt anger, but it was directly entirely at himself. It had been difficult not to snap at his aide and driver—even at Phip, his best friend—but that would have just been to cover how foolish Lon felt, and he would have felt even worse if he had. He was certain his face had flushed bright red, but that was something the others couldn’t have seen through the tinted faceplate of his helmet. Get a grip on yourself. The anger had not faded. If anything, it had grown stronger, and the more rational part of Lon’s mind noted that as well. Take a deep breath. It’s done and over. Concentrate on what you’ve got to do now. You’re responsible for more t
han eight thousand men. You can’t let worry about one of them paralyze you.

  One deep breath, let out slowly. A second. Lon started walking, his head moving from side to side, his eyes scanning. Get back in the rhythm. Junior will be okay. Make sure you don’t do something stupid and get yourself hurt, or show everyone that you’re falling apart. Years of worry about Junior joining the Corps and then about his safety once he did had all hit him at once, knocked him for the proverbial loop. I’m still not thoroughly Dirigenter, he thought. I can’t take something like this in stride.

  Jaz Taiters called to say that the enemy ambush had been wiped out—twenty New Spartans dead, or wounded and captured; no more than two or three had escaped. If Taiters hadn’t added his assurance that Junior would recover, the routine message would have helped Lon bring his mind fully back to the necessities of the moment. As it was, the comment made it that more difficult, reminded him how vulnerable he had become through worrying about his son.

  Lon forced himself through another series of breathing exercises, designed to help him relax. He called each battalion commander in turn, to ask about position and progress, and added an unnecessary reminder to be especially watchful for ambushes. Then he called Fal Jensen to check on 15th Regiment. Finally, he made a routine check with the duty officer in CIC aboard Peregrine. Concentrating—fiercely—on the minutiae of routine helped. Lon could feel his body adjusting, coming back down to the “normal” level of tension for a field situation with combat possible but not probable at any minute.

  He glanced at the timeline on his head-up display. Less than thirty minutes had passed since he heard that Junior had been wounded. We’ve only been on the surface twenty-four hours. That realization was startling. It seemed as if the Elysian campaign had lasted half an eternity. Lon squeezed his eyes shut for an instant. His head throbbed dully with the tension. He forced another deep breath, opening his eyes so he wouldn’t stumble and have everyone on top of him asking after his health again. Though he tried to ignore it, the thought You’ll be reminded about falling on your butt as long as you’re in the Corps would not be denied. Lon growled, almost under his breath.