Colonel

by Rick Shelley

  New medical supplies had been received, along with ammunition and meal packs. There had been no losses, except for some of the delicate medical stores that had been jarred by too-rough landings. The New Spartans in orbit had not even tried to intercept the small rockets. Nor had they attempted to resupply their own troops.

  “They have to be getting short on ammunition for all their weapons,” Lon said after a lengthy silence. “Probably short of food as well. They haven’t had any fresh supplies in since we hit the ground, and I doubt that they carried more than a couple of days’ worth before we showed up.”

  Phip shrugged. “They had almost three days to build up their stockpiles on the ground between the time we came out of Q-space and when we reached attack orbit. Maybe they are short of food, but they won’t starve before their compatriots arrive, even if their stomachs growl a lot. But if they haven’t got bullets to feed their rifles, why the hell don’t they surrender now and get it over with? Save a lot of lives.”

  “Maybe their commander still believes in miracles,” Lon said. “And maybe he’s waiting to see if we’ve got the balls to try to finish them off. There’s a chance that once we start to press the attack they might show the white flag in a hurry.”

  “So who still believes in miracles?” Phip asked. “I thought you got cured of wishful thinking a couple of decades ago.”

  Lon laughed as he turned his head to look at Phip. “I did give up believing in miracles, but then you went and got married and I had to reconsider.”

  Phip shook his head, but he was grinning. “Hard to argue with that reasoning,” he said. “Why don’t you have a meal, then get some sleep? I’ll keep my eyes open and let you know if anything important happens.”

  Lon hesitated. “I’m not really hungry, but I’d better try to get a little sleep,” he conceded. Just the mention of sleep forced a yawn from his throat. “At least a couple of hours.”

  “Try, hell,” Phip said. “If you can’t get to sleep without it, put a four-hour patch on. We’re neither of us kids. We need our sleep. I had mine in a tube, and that’s better than sleep, but you’ve been on the go forever. You’ve got to have your head clear when the fight starts. Go on, use a patch. Anything happens, I’ll pull it and put a stim-patch on to jerk you awake.”

  25

  When Lon woke and opened his eyes, the timeline on his visor display informed him that it was 0225 hours—almost two-thirty in the morning. He took several slow breaths to help get rid of the slight tension headache that a sleep patch almost always left him with. Almost two-thirty; I got the full four hours, he thought. That means nothing has gone wrong. That was a relief, dampened when he next realized that it also meant that nothing had gone exceptionally well either—the New Spartans had not surrendered to spare themselves the bloodletting of battle. I guess that was too much to hope for. If they were going to surrender that easily, they would have done it earlier.

  Lon could hear no gunfire, which also spoke loudly to the peacefulness of the moment. He stretched cautiously, almost as if he were afraid that someone would notice. He clicked his radio receiver on and turned to the channel that gave him the running commentary from CIC on Peregrine. With no activity on the ground, the talk was no longer constant. There was a pause of nearly twenty seconds before someone in CIC started repeating the latest summary. Nothing new on the ground. No fighting at the moment between us and the New Spartan cruiser. The new fleet continues on course toward us; no change in their estimated time of arrival; they’re still at least thirty-one hours away. We’ll repeat this message in five minutes. The dull tones of the sailor reading the report reinforced the bland nature of the message. There seemed to be a “ho-hum” behind each phrase, as if he had difficulty staying awake through it.

  Several blinks. A more expansive stretch. Lon looked around him, subconsciously ignoring the slight greenish tinge that the infrared portion of his night-vision system gave to everything. That was so old-hat that it was extremely rare when he actually noticed. He saw Phip’s figure about ten feet away, and knew it was Phip mostly by the way he sat, his head forward just a little, the sight movements of body and limbs. The sling was gone from his left arm. Lon needed a few seconds before he noticed its absence.

  “Did Doc Norman approve that, or did you do it on your own?” Lon asked, lifting his faceplate when Phip turned to look at him. The night turned dark without the night-vision gear.

  “I gave it all the time he told me to,” Phip said. He only lifted his faceplate far enough to expose his mouth. Lon pulled his back down, to the same extent. “Feels okay, really, just about one hundred percent.” Phip made a series of movements with the arm, flexing and stretching all the muscles, exercising the joints. “See? No pain, just the least little stiffness from having it immobilized so long.”

  “Any news I should know about?” Lon asked. He opened his canteen and took a long sip of water. That and several deep breaths banished the last traces of his headache.

  “Nothing but routine, far as I know. Everyone’s where they’re supposed to be, getting what rest they can, ready to go when the time comes, or whenever the New Spartans decide to do something.” He paused. “Whichever comes first, I guess. The skipper of Peregrine wants you to call him. I suspect he wants to gripe about how many Shrikes you want to pull down to support this operation.”

  “I suspect you’re right. He’d prefer keeping all of them to defend our ships, even though he’s got numerical superiority over the New Spartan fighters. Now, if there’s nothing else I need to know about, it’s time for you to shut your eyes and get a little rest before the attack.”

  “To tell the truth, I’ve already dozed a couple of times. Jerry and me been taking turns, making sure one of us is always awake and close by, listening to the radio and watching. Things are getting too close. Even if I could get to sleep, it’d be time to wake back up so soon it’s not worth the trouble.”

  “Worth it or not, take the trouble,” Lon said. “Humor me. You’ve already caused me enough worry for one contract. Besides, your medical nanobugs will work that much better while you’re asleep, and I can see that arm and shoulder aren’t quite all the way back yet. I’m awake and alert. Soon as I get a bite to eat, I’m going to be busy on the radio.”

  Lon spent nearly ten minutes talking with Kurt Thorsen, the captain of Peregrine. Thorsen made only pro forma objections—though he repeated them several times—to the use of four Shrike II fighters to provide close air support. They would rotate in and out, two at a time, minimizing the time when the troops on the ground would be without air cover. As each pair of fighters returned to the ships, they would be rearmed while another pair went out … at least as long as the Dirigenter ships did not come under heavy attack. Four shuttles would come in under the cover of the first Shrikes, carrying ammunition for the heavy-weapons battalions. Lon decided to do that at the same time as the ground attack, rather than wait and try to slip shuttles in after the battle, before the next New Spartan fleet got close enough to interfere. If this fight gets close, maybe they’ll make the difference, he reasoned. One fight instead of two.

  Most of the conversation concerned various contingency plans, including the possibility of sending Agamemnon and Odysseus out to intercept the incoming New Spartan ships as far away from Elysium as possible—too far out for them to launch shuttles and reinforcing troops. “We can only risk that if we win the fight down here,” Lon concluded … to Thorsen’s obvious relief. Any further debate on the topic could wait until later.

  “Everything depends on how you people do this morning,” Thorsen said. “I wish there was more we could do to help, but we’ve got our own problems up here, as you know.”

  “Be ready to launch an MR back to Dirigent once we know how the fight goes down here,” Lon said near the end of the conversation. “If it goes badly for us, you may have to make the reports.” I may not be here to make them. He tried not to think about that, but the thought kept sneaking past his defenses. />
  One by one, Lon spoke with Fal Jensen, Tefford Ives, and each battalion commander in both regiments. He asked each about unit strength and readiness, and gave the commanders personal briefings for the upcoming operation, asking each man if he had any suggestions—and giving each suggestion his full consideration. Still, the process did not take all that long—no more than half an hour altogether. There was, now, time for that. By the time Lon had finished, the last sleeping men were being wakened to give them time for breakfast and whatever reflections might come in the last hour before battle.

  Lon thought about calling Junior, to have at least a few words with him before the shooting started, maybe the last words they would ever be able to exchange. The temptation to indulge himself was strong, but—in the end—he did not. I can’t fuss over him like a mother hen, Lon thought. Let him keep his mind clear for what’s coming. Don’t complicate things for him. He doesn’t think about this the way you do. He’s a Dirigenter by birth, not a transplanted Earther. But it could not stop Lon from thinking about Junior, and the rest of his family, almost until it was time to give the order to start the assault against the New Spartans. Images drifted through Lon’s mind, words and pictures, mostly of times when Junior was very small. And Angie, more when she was a toddler than now, almost a grown woman. Only briefly did Lon think about the baby who was coming, the third child … and the chance that he might not get home to ever see him or her.

  Don’t think about that, Lon told himself as sternly as he could. Even if this turns into a disaster, there’s no reason why you won’t get home. Sooner or later. That was one … courtesy one mercenary could expect from another. Prisoners would be repatriated eventually, though perhaps at a price. If the Corps lost the fight on Elysium—this one or a later battle with the New Spartan reinforcements—Lon might go home in disgrace, but there was every reason to believe that he would go home.

  Sara. Lon mouthed the name silently, closing his eyes. He pictured his wife in his mind, imagining that she appeared farther along in her pregnancy than she was, seeing her as she had been just before she had delivered Angie, or Junior. She still looked almost that young, but Lon could see the differences in his mental image, vague overlays as through a lens whose focus was subtly changing … a few pounds, a few tiny wrinkles. I hope she’s not worrying too much about us, Lon thought. She doesn’t need that kind of stress while she’s pregnant. But she would worry, though she always tried to hide it; that was the Dirigenter way. Two of us to worry about now, and out on the same mission. Lon shook his head and opened his eyes. I’ve been a Dirigenter for almost thirty years and I still don’t have the instinct to treat this as just a job, with risks that have to be accepted. Another day at the office. Sara did not see those risks quite the same way Lon did, and Junior was even more … cavalier about them. How much is real and how much is pretense? Lon asked himself—as he had countless times over the years. Do they really see this so much differently, or is it only an act they’re conditioned to from infancy?

  Lon took his canteen out again, seeking the distraction of routine activity to try to rein in his thoughts. He took a mouthful of water, sloshed it around his mouth, then spit it out, over the front of his slit trench, too noisily. Then he took a slow drink and swallowed before he put the canteen back on his belt, focusing on each action. A few feet away, Phip shifted position, as if he had been disturbed by the activity.

  Is he trying to sleep or just faking it to keep me satisfied? Lon wondered. Again: reality or pretense? There’s so much of that, masks over masks. Even if Phip were asleep, it would not take much to rouse him, not in a combat zone—even though the enemy was a couple of miles away. Either way, I can give him another five minutes, Lon thought. He glanced at the timeline on his helmet display. He had told the commanders that the order to begin the assault would come at 0455 hours, and that was only fifteen minutes away. Already, the Shrike II fighters and the shuttles would be well away from their ships, more than halfway through their run in toward the ground.

  Fifteen minutes. Lon closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again. It would take a few minutes for the battle to be fully joined after that; the inertia of waiting would have to be overcome. Around the New Spartans, the Dirigenters with beamers—energy rifles—would be the first to open fire, invisible and silent death if there were any targets visible … if any of the New Spartans were the least bit careless about staying down. The time for the slug-throwing rifles and grenade launchers would come next, perhaps not until the New Spartans realized that they were under attack. When the first pair of Shrike IIs started strafing and firing rockets into their positions, there would be no doubt left.

  There won’t be many RPGs at the beginning, Lon thought. We don’t have that many units close enough for grenades to be effective. The Book listed the maximum effective range for the grenade launchers at two hundred yards, and recommended that they be used at targets within one hundred sixty yards. From experience, Lon knew that a good grenadier could hit a target with a ten-foot diameter four times out of five from two hundred thirty yards, slightly more if the terrain and wind were to his advantage—and with a kill radius of twenty-five yards for fragmentation grenades, that was more target than a grenadier needed. But a sharpshooter could put a rifle bullet into a man-size target at near a mile’s distance under optimal conditions, and a beamer could—theoretically—hit the same target at up to five miles before atmospheric dispersal of the twelve-millimeter beam rendered it ineffective.

  “Okay, Phip, time to rise and shine,” Lon said, the visor of his helmet up just a little. He did not speak loudly, but Phip rolled over immediately and raised up on his right elbow.

  Phip groaned softly. “We’re both getting too old for this crap, Lon. I wish I hadn’t tried to sleep. I felt pretty good before. Now I ache in every joint.”

  “It’s all in your head,” Lon said. “If you’re going to grab a bite to eat, you’d better get right to it. Another eight minutes or so and I give the word to start the assault. The first flight of Shrikes will hit about two minutes after that.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Phip said, a rare statement for him. “I don’t even want to think about food. You know something?” he added after a short pause. “War makes a lousy spectator sport. I hate sitting back and watching what’s going on more than I hate being up close and having buzzards shooting at me.” He got to his knees and looked over the dirt parapet in front of him, then reached for the binoculars and put them to his face. “Sometimes it feels like there’s something vaguely obscene about this longdistance watching, a damned peep show. Makes me feel dirty.”

  “Well, your griping is back up to speed, so you must be just about recovered from your injuries,” Lon said, fighting to hold back a chuckle. Phip had always been a masterful complainer. “I guess I can stop worrying about you.”

  “Now if I could stop worrying about you,” Phip said.

  “You’ve never stopped worrying about anything in your life, once you get a bee in your bonnet,” Lon’s mother had told him—a year or two before, during a discussion about Junior’s decision to join the Corps, a talk that had inescapably turned to Lon’s childhood. “You were like that even when you were five or six years old, and I swear it got worse every year after that. If you didn’t have something real to worry about, you manufactured something and fretted at that until something better came along.”

  The memory was obtrusive and the timing bad. Only four minutes remained until the time Lon had scheduled for the beginning of what he hoped would be the final battle of the Elysian contract. Maybe I have worried too much about some things, he conceded to himself. But worrying about a problem is the first step toward solving it. You don’t worry about a problem, you don’t go looking for solutions. Even if they don’t exist.

  The Shrike II fighters were on their way in, on schedule, already inside the atmosphere. Lon had an open radio channel to Fal Jensen and all of the battalion commanders in both regiments on the ground
. Everyone was ready, waiting for the word. Lon watched the seconds tick off on his head-up display’s timeline. Unless the New Spartans preempted him, he would give the order exactly on schedule … then watch what happened.

  I know what Phip was talking about—war as a spectator sport. It’s worse when you’re the one who has to give the orders, knowing that people are going to die be cause of those orders. Lon swallowed hard, feeling a knot grow in his stomach. There was a different fear associated with giving the orders than there was in receiving them and going head-to-head with an enemy. Fear of dying versus the fear of making a mistake and causing too many of his men to die. And the latter was worse, in many ways. Dying was all too easy.

  Two minutes. Lon took another drink from his canteen, more from nervousness than thirst. The waiting made his mouth dry, but he didn’t want his voice to crack when he gave the order. That might show his fear to others, and that was something a commander needed to avoid at almost any cost. One drink. A second. The canteen was more than half empty now, and Lon had only one more on his belt.

  Lord, don’t let me fail my men. The prayer was old. Lon had used it every time he had led—or ordered—his men into combat.

  Time! Lon clicked his transmitter open. He gave the order. “Go!”

  The order was repeated, from battalion to company to platoon and squad. Men brought their weapons to their shoulders. Those with energy rifles started looking for targets, if they hadn’t already been watching through the gunsights. In a few carefully chosen locations—determined by the lay of the land and the course the Shrikes would follow coming in for their first attack runs—squads started inching closer to the enemy lines, their goal to get their grenadiers within range.