Colonel

by Rick Shelley

  “No line units,” Lon said. “The rocket and gun artillery will stand by for possible fire missions. If things get too rough, we might end up using their crews as infantry.” In the DMC, every man was a rifleman first. “The only other reserve will be the headquarters detachments, and they might get into the fight as well. We have to put everything we can into this.”

  “No argument on that,” Jensen said. “Since this is an all-out offensive, will you try to bring in Shrikes to help?”

  Lon hesitated. “Probably not. Realistically, the most we might manage is four to six, with the rest trying to keep the New Spartans occupied defending their ships. Captain Thorsen will undoubtedly argue against using even four fighters for close air support, especially with more enemy ships approaching. On balance, the good that four Shrikes might do isn’t worth the risk, except in extremis.”

  “So we’re on our own.” Jensen did not bother to give that the inflection of a question.

  “We’re on our own,” Lon agreed. “The next order of business is resupply of small-arms ammunition. We’ll set that up for our next rest periods, have the ships gang-launch the resupply rockets while our Shrikes are out to keep the enemy from trying to intercept them. That way, maybe most of the ammunition will make it down intact. We’ll want to have the men who are going to guide each rocket in out in the open to give them the best view for the work. Get the rockets in and get the ammunition distributed as quickly as possible. We’ll bring in as much as we can. Any surplus will be used quickly, I think.” Besides, no soldier ever complained about carrying too much ammunition when a fight was expected.

  “No one’s ever tried to resupply two whole regiments at one time,” someone said on the circuit. Lon did not recognize the voice. It was one of 15th’s battalion commanders.

  “We’re spread out enough that it shouldn’t be a major problem,” Lon said. “There are more than enough control frequencies to avoid having the wrong rocket respond to commands. The men running the controls will have an acquisition blip on their head-up displays. After that, it’s pretty much the same whether there’s one rocket coming in or a thousand, as long as the controllers are paying attention. And bringing them all in at once buys us a measure of safety from enemy interception. There’ll be too many rockets in the air for them to have any hope of targeting even ten percent of them.”

  It sounded good, and Lon had not been able to find any reason why it might not work, but the anonymous voice had been right. It was something that had never been tried before. Operations this large are so rare, the need has never come up, Lon consoled himself. It was, of course, still one more thing to worry about.

  His primary worry, at the moment, was forcing the enemy on the ground to fight. There was no guarantee it would be possible. Both regiments pushed as hard as they could through the day. The rocket artillery and, later, the self-propelled howitzers forced the New Spartans to stop three different times, and slowed their pace for nearly three hours before the artillery exhausted the percentage of munitions that Lon had allotted to the task.

  There had been no answering fire from the New Spartans. If they had any mobile rocket launchers left, they must certainly be out of ammunition—at least that was what Lon tried to convince himself of. But there was a nagging worry that the enemy might be reserving a few rounds for a more desperate situation. I would if I could, he thought.

  Through the day, the only long stops the New Spartans made were those occasioned by the artillery fire, when it became simply too dangerous to advance. Other than that, they took no more than five minutes every hour and a quarter or so. “We’ll take two breaks for every three they take,” Lon told 7th’s battalion commanders. Fal Jensen pushed 15th even harder. It was a questionable trade-off, speed in catching the enemy against how tired the Dirigenters would be when they did.

  “We have to take the risk,” Fal Jensen told Lon. “We can’t let these New Spartans evade us until their reinforcements land.”

  Lon had not tried to argue the point.

  Still, an hour before sunset, both regimental commanders did allow a longer rest—time for a meal, time to let everyone get off their feet for an hour … and maybe get thirty minutes of sleep. “I think we’re close enough to risk it, not that we have much choice,” Jensen said when he and Lon conferred about the necessity. “The New Spartans are moving a lot slower as well. They’ll have to take more time or have too many stragglers to be effective. We’ve already picked up a couple of them.”

  “The Elysians are almost on top of the New Spartans,” Lon said, closing his eyes. He did not expect to get any sleep himself during the short stop. He doubted he would get a chance to try. A meal and coffee would have to be enough. “As soon as it’s dark, they’ll hit. That’ll slow the enemy some more. The tanks will be in position to cover the fight by then as well.”

  “I’ve just had a report from one of my patrols,” Jensen said, almost overriding Lon’s final words. “The New Spartans have stopped and seem to be moving into a defensive perimeter. Maybe the chase is over. They’re no more than two thousand yards out from my leading elements.”

  “The other batch of them, south of the river, are nearly to the ford,” Lon said, after switching the view on his mapboard just long enough to check the latest position. Though none of those New Spartans were currently using active electronics, CIC had pinpointed the most recent sightings. That left room for error, or deception, but it was more reliable than guesswork.

  “That still leaves them at least five or six hours away, no matter how hard they push,” Jensen noted. “If we can handle the main force quickly, the troops south of the river will be pretty much irrelevant.”

  “Don’t count on this being over that quickly,” Lon said. “These are professionals, like us. They might still have a few surprises for us. I’ll be surprised if they don’t. We can’t even be certain they don’t have any rocket artillery left.”

  “Maybe,” Jensen conceded, “but I think they’d have used that before now, while we were pounding them so hard before.”

  “Like they say, ‘Don’t bet the farm.’”

  Lon made the rest of the calls he had to make, trying to keep each brief. The longest conversations were those with Jensen and Ives. Lon wanted each to be absolutely clear on what he planned. In case something happened to him before the night ended, there would be no lapse in command. Lon ate during the process, a mouthful here and there, spaced around the talk. Phip, Torrey Berger, Howell, and Dorcetti ran errands and brought messages as well.

  Sunset came. In the next half hour Lon moved some of his companies nearer to their attack positions, closing possible avenues of escape for the New Spartans … who showed no sign of trying to escape. The artillery was alerted against the possibility—probability—that the enemy troops south of the Styx might try to cross within the next hour.

  Finally, Lon had an all-too-rare moment to himself. He leaned back, rotating his head to help ease a strain in his neck, then closed his eyes—just for a few seconds. He rested his head against the tree trunk behind him. There was an ache over his right eye, and he felt the beginnings of a tic—pure nervousness, tension. It couldn’t be anything physical; his nano HMS would correct any physical problem quickly, automatically.

  What am I missing? What do the New Spartans have up their sleeves? He had no idea how many times he had asked himself the same questions before. There had to be something, something perhaps vitally important. The New Spartans wouldn’t just calmly put their collective head in the noose without some plan, some realistic hope of turning the tables.

  “They’re not acting desperate,” Lon whispered. He opened his eyes again. “What’s their hole card?” What could it be? He shook his head. More ammunition for their rocket artillery than he thought possible? More launchers that hadn’t been spotted yet? Both? Or did they maybe have more men on the ground than he knew about, men who had been observing strict electronic silence since the Dirigenters arrived? Maybe we’re supposed
to worry about the six hundred men south of the Styx, to keep us from looking elsewhere, Lon thought.

  He called CIC on Peregrine again, to ask about movements of New Spartan ships—especially the cruiser that was close enough to interfere. It was maintaining position; the transports were still well out on their highly eccentric orbits, apparently doing everything they could to stay out of reach. Peregrine and the rest of the Dirigenter fleet were continuing a close scan of everything within forty miles of the DMC troops. There were no anomalies, no hint of additional enemy units, but most of the ground was tree-covered. Forest canopy could hide hundreds of troops as long as they did not use active electronics. Even thermal signatures could be concealed, or disguised, with the right kind of insulation and discipline.

  We could do it without much difficulty, Lon thought. We have to assume that the New Spartans can. But there was little, if anything, he could order done that wasn’t already being done to discover any surprises the enemy might have. Patrols were being run. Electronic snoops had been set out in almost spendthrift fashion. The ships had the terrain under constant surveillance, from several angles, scanning from infrared through ultraviolet, and throughout the usable spectrum of radio frequencies. If they do have anything, we’ll get at least a few seconds’ warning before anything hits, Lon told himself. It was not much consolation.

  I could bring Junior here and keep him close tonight, out of the way of trouble. That thought, unbidden and unexpected, was something of a shock. Junior had not been in Lon’s conscious thoughts for some time. He shook his head. I can’t do that, for many reasons. Junior would resent it, and too many people would see it for what it would be, an effort to keep the younger man away from the greatest danger.

  Doc Norman would shake his head and cluck his tongue just at the suggestion, Lon thought. He shook his own head. I guess I haven’t completely put all my worries to sleep. I guess I never will, not as long as he’s in the Corps and in harm’s way. I’m still not completely a Dirigenter in my head. Lon sighed, softly, and shook his head again. But I wouldn’t be a proper father if I didn’t worry about my only son.

  Fal Jensen launched his attack, supported by 15th Regiment’s tanks. At first the attack made some progress, but it was stopped three hundred yards short of the New Spartan line by concentrated—and extremely accurate—small-arms fire. Too much fire for the manpower they have? Lon wondered. Farther east and south, the companies of Elysian soldiers raced to join the fray. They had hardly begun to contribute when CIC relayed the news that the other contingent of New Spartans had started to cross the Styx. As planned, Lon committed most of the rockets his artillery still had to making the crossing as expensive for the enemy as possible.

  Lon’s 4th Battalion was the next unit to join the firefight. The rest of 7th Regiment remained too far away to participate. Lon had those three battalions on the move, though, heading for the northern flank of the New Spartans. The enemy had high ground behind him, and secondary positions, allowing them to withdraw into even better defensive posture, higher.

  “We’re about forty minutes from engagement,” Lon told Fal Jensen. “Keep them occupied.”

  Lon did not hear Jensen’s reply. That was when the New Spartans chose to spring their surprises.

  20

  That the New Spartans still had self-propelled rocket launchers and missiles for them to fire was not the most startling surprise possible. What Lon was not prepared for was the sheer volume of fire and the area where it originated—south of the river, and farther east than the area near the ford that had been under closest scrutiny. In less than a minute after the first crew-served rocket was fired, it appeared certain that the New Spartans had at least eight and perhaps a dozen or more launchers across the Styx, platforms that had not been spotted—or even suspected—before they started firing at the Dirigenter positions. The missiles came with profligate abandon, the launchers moving as they fired, following courses designed to be too random in appearance to permit successful counterbattery fire. Some of the rockets targeted the Dirigenter artillery, but most were directed at the infantry units pressing the attack against the main New Spartan force.

  At the same time, obviously coordinated, the New Spartan cruiser in orbit launched all of its aerospace fighters on an attack against Agamemnon and Odysseus, ensuring that the Shrike II fighters could not be used for ground support.

  “We’ve got to do something about that artillery!” Fal Jensen shouted into his radio connection with Lon. “They’re right on target, tearing us to pieces.”

  “There’s not much we can do, Fal,” Lon said. “We don’t have enough rockets yet to saturate the areas they’re firing from, they’re too far away for the howitzers, and it’s going to take forty minutes or more to get the big guns close enough. The best we can do is close with the enemy infantry fast, get right in with them so their artillery can’t hit us without hitting their own people.”

  “Can’t we use what rockets we do have?” Fal asked.

  “We’ve used almost every rocket to hit that short battalion of infantry crossing the river,” Lon replied. “We’ll put one or two rockets in the area where they’re shooting from, but we don’t have anything more. Keep your men down and dispersed until you can close with the enemy. As much as possible, passive electronics only. Don’t give them anything they can home in on.”

  “They don’t need electronics to home in on us. The New Spartans in front of us know exactly where we are.”

  “So don’t help them. And we’re not all in sight of the enemy. I’m going to make the order general. No radio or any other active electronics emissions unless absolutely essential,” Lon said. “Pass that to your battalion and company commanders while I do the same for mine.”

  Lon had not finished passing that order along when the New Spartans unveiled their next surprise, an attack against the rearmost units of 7th Regiment. Since Lon’s headquarters was, at the moment, very near the rear, he did not need reports to know about this attack. It seemed to be aimed directly at him.

  Jeremy Howell almost bowled Lon over, trying to get him flat on the ground. The headquarters detachment had been on the move with the rest of the regiment, so they did not have slit trenches or any other cover available. The two men were scarcely down, and turned to face this latest threat, when a rocket-propelled grenade exploded eighty yards from them, quickly followed by several others along an arc, all at about the same distance.

  “Maybe they’re wasting rounds,” Howell shouted near the side of Lon’s helmet, “but there’s no need to take chances. Give the rear guard time to deal with them, sir.”

  “I know, Jerry. Now will you kindly get off me?” Lon said, shrugging his entire body to move Howell’s weight off his back and side. “I’m not so old I can’t fall down on my own.” Howell slid sideways.

  “Sorry, sir,” Howell mumbled, but both knew he would do the same thing again without thinking past the need to keep the Old Man safe. “Things sure went to hell in a hurry. Where’d they all come from?”

  Lon didn’t even try to answer. He adjusted his position, bringing his rifle to the ready, jacking a cartridge into the chamber and switching the safety to off. At least I still know how to use this, he thought. There was no need for him to start issuing commands to deal with the attack. The trailing companies of 1st and 3rd Battalions were already moving to isolate and eliminate the attack against the rear of the formation. Within three minutes he had a preliminary estimate of the number of New Spartans involved—no more than a single company, two hundred men, and more likely only half that number.

  Those men did only minimal damage directly, but they were close enough to call in accurate ranging information to their supporting artillery, and rockets started falling by the time Lon knew how many of the enemy there were west of him. “That means we’ve got to move, and now,” he told Howell before broadcasting the order to the affected commanders.

  The two companies on rearguard duty would do what they could to hol
d the enemy in place while the rest moved north and east, hoping to escape direct observation. Lon’s security detachment formed up around him—not a human shield, except for Howell and Dorcetti, but a properly dispersed infantry platoon adopting fire-and-maneuver tactics, using their rifles and rocket-propelled grenades to suppress enemy fire. The security troops were more heavily equipped with RPGs than line companies were, two per squad rather than one.

  It was an orderly withdrawal and, since they were moving in the direction of an even stronger enemy force, it could not be properly called a retreat—an ironic thought that flittered through Lon’s mind as he moved from one tree to the next, running bent low, zigzagging as erratically as he could. Leaving others to do the dirty work. There was no time to pursue that thought. He would be derelict in his duty if he did get involved in a minor skirmish at the edge of the main battle, distracted from his primary responsibilities.

  After he had covered forty yards, Lon did stop momentarily, mostly to catch his breath. He sank to one knee, the trunk of a massive tree covering him from much of the enemy fire. Before he got up to start moving again, he did loose several short bursts of rifle fire toward the enemy, more for his own satisfaction than because he hoped to seriously contribute to the effort. He looked around, noting the positions of Jeremy Howell and Frank Dorcetti—never too far from him.