by Rick Shelley
“We don’t really need Avon until we get where we’re going and do what we’re here to do,” Naughton said. “And if they’re late for the party, we’ll be able to hitch a ride when the rest of our blokes show up.”
David nodded. He had considered that. It still did not ease his worry. “We’ve got another forty minutes until the alternate link window. Time to get the lads up, Mitch. I want to use as much of the night as we can.”
The camouflage pattern of the Commonwealth battledress was even more effective at night than it was during the day, and the field skin that each man wore under his uniform minimized the infrared signature of the hot body under it. With properly fitted helmets and field skins, there was almost no leakage of heat. Only the hands were left uncovered. The 2nd Commando moved through the forest in silence, camouflaged ghosts. They even startled some of the jungle hunters.
As long as the night held, Spencer pushed his men hard, allowing only a five-minute break every hour and a half. Even with full combat packs and extra supplies, that was not a particularly onerous pace. In training, the commandos had been pushed much harder. Before graduating, every man had to complete a twenty-six-mile marathon in combat kit, sixty pounds of dead weight, in under five hours.
Avon did not call during the alternate time. Spencer only mentioned that to Lieutenant Hopewell and Lead Sergeant Naughton. They could share that much of the burden of leadership. There was no point in worrying anyone else with the possibility that they were totally on their own.
The only halt during the remainder of the night that was longer than five minutes came when the commandos reached a river that was wide enough and deep enough to pose a problem.
“We’ll have to wait until we have a little light,” Spencer conceded after a few minutes of moving along the bank looking for an easy crossing.
“That’s nearly an hour off, Captain,” Naughton said.
“We’ll move along the river until then, upstream, with a man as close to the bank as possible, in case something pops up.”
Naughton shook his head. “I don’t think that’s too practical, sir. The undergrowth is too damn thick down close to the water. Vines and thickets and trees with standing roots.”
Spencer hesitated, then nodded. “You’re right. We’ve still got to keep moving. I don’t want to waste an hour sitting here waiting for light. We’ll stay as close as we can stay to the river and still make good time. That shouldn’t be more than twenty or thirty yards. The heavy undergrowth seems to be concentrated that close in.”
The detachment continued to move in parallel columns. Where possible, they kept flankers out on either side, a single fire team, with another fire team fifty yards in front of the main body. There was no reason to suspect that they might run into enemy soldiers, but David took nothing for granted.
Dawn came slowly under the forest canopy. The treetops were higher now, and thicker. Underneath, except rightalong the waterway, there was little undergrowth, only a few vines that climbed tree trunks and spanned the caps between crowns looking for sunlight. The mixture of savanna and scattered stands of trees had changed into more typical rain forest.
As long as they stayed away from the river and from the occasional treefall gap where new growth struggled to win the race for sunlight, the terrain was easy, almost like marching through a massive colonnaded temple. The ground was level to gently sloping. The soil was covered with a thin layer of detritus that was being recycled to feed the growth of the trees. Mostly, it was slightly spongy, easy on the feet.
Before the Marines saw the dawn, they heard it proclaimed by the birds and small mammals of the forest canopy. Day feeders became active. Camerein had a normal variety of fauna. Like most worlds that were suitable for humans, Camerein boasted the same types of species that man had evolved alongside on Earth. There were some that might be mistaken for Earth species, while others were clearly—occasionally radically—different. But the underlying building blocks of life were always the same, the DNA, RNA, enzymes, and proteins. On any world that humans had settled, at least some native flora and fauna could be eaten without ill effects. Mankind’s larder grew in variety with each new world he settled.
As soon as light started to reach down to the floor of the forest, David moved his men back toward the river. There were paths through the thick tangles that marked where animals went to drink, or to cross. With a little luck, one of those paths would mark an easy ford across the river.
The first did not. The water was clear, and too deep to wade across. “If we knew for sure that there was nothing in these waters that might enjoy a taste of Marine for breakfast, we could wade along in the shallows next to the bank until we found a place to cross,” Spencer told Hopewell.
“We’re going to get wet sooner or later,” the lieutenantreplied. “We could send one man across with ropes to rig a bridge for the rest.”
“if we have to, of course,” David said. “But we’ve got a little slack just now. We moved far enough off the direct line yesterday. We can stay on this side of the river for a couple of hours and keep looking for an easy crossing. Going upstream, the farther we go the easier it should get.”
They checked three more paths to the water’s edge before they found an easy ford. The stream was wider but shallower, and rarely did anyone have to step in water more than knee deep. Moving from one bank to the other was still a slow operation. David sent one squad across to set up a defensive position. The rest forded the river one squad at a time, the men spaced several yards apart, everyone watching for the rare chance of an ambush—or the perhaps greater chance of attack by a river predator.
The river crossing had to be done slowly even though the men would be clearly visible against the water if there were any spyeyes or aircraft looking. The current was fast, the bottom slippery. It would be easy for an accident to happen, and a man swept off his feet might be in serious danger with sixty pounds of extra weight hanging off him, even if the water was no more than two feet deep. The Marines kept an eye on the sky, but even though they didn’t see anything, any orbiting satellite could spot them if it were looking in the proper direction.
It wasn’t until only the final squad remained to cross the river that Spencer sent his point squad on ahead. The rest of the commandos waited until the last men had crossed the river.
“We’ll have at least two more major crossings before we get where we’re going,” David said, talking with his lead sergeant before the two men separated to take their positions in the columns. “The last one might be a proper corker. The mapboard showed that stream three times the width of this one.”
Naughton couldn’t hold back a wide grin. “Well, sir,” he said as seriously as he could manage, “I guess we’llhave to cross that river when we come to it.” The captain’s groan widened Mitchel’s grin. “Sorry, sir. I just couldn’t resist.”
“You’ve definitely been spending too much time around Alfie,” Spencer said. “He’s rubbing off on you.”
“More like I’ve spent too much time trying to get the spark back in him. He’s been as dour as my maiden aunt.”
David altered the pace occasionally as a substitute for long rest breaks. It was still necessary to stop once in a while, but the continued lack of any contact with Avon made Spencer decide that the sooner they reached their goal, the better he would feel. Once they arrived at the Commonwealth Excelsior and learned what they had been sent to learn, the Marines’ only task would be to stay alive and out of enemy hands—and protect any survivors they found at the hotel—until the rest of the regiment landed and relieved them.
With an entire continent to hide in, David thought that it should be possible even if the Federation put an entire army on the ground to hunt them down. All we need is a little luck, he told himself. Not much, just a little. Every hour they were on the move now made that luck feel a little closer. The only guide the Federation would have to locating them was the first crashed shuttle. That was their only starting point, and it
was getting farther away the longer the Marines marched.
The commandos’ luck expired almost exactly twenty-four hours after they landed on Camerein.
The gunfire was as much a surprise as a clap of thunder in a perfectly clear sky. Startled Marines dropped to the ground, looking for the source of the shots. Two men from the squad on point were hit in the first bursts. One was dead before he fell.
“Where did that come from?” David asked on the channel that connected him with Lieutenant Hopewell and allof the noncoms. With enemy fire coming in, radio silence was not necessary.
“Ahead and to the left,” Alfie Edwards said. “I don’t think it’s more than a single squad, Cap. They were waiting for us.”
“Get to them quickly, Alfie. We can’t let them tie us down long enough for reinforcements to join them. Tony, you take half of the platoon one way and let Alfie go the other. Will, you keep your men watching the rest of the perimeter in case it’s a two-tiered ambush.”
Each platoon sergeant was also leader of his platoon’s first squad, one of the Royal Marines’ economies of management. Alfie gestured for his squad and second squad to move with him. Hopewell and the other two squads moved in the opposite direction while the remainder of 2nd Platoon and the headquarters squad worked to keep the Federation occupied.
“They’re at extreme range,” Alfie reported when he finally spotted a muzzle flash. The other half of the platoon was slower to get close. “Well over two hundred yards.” The point squad had been a lot closer to the enemy. The Federation had found good positions for their ambush. They had excellent cover on three sides.
“Don’t waste time playing with them, Alfie,” Spencer said. “Get in grenade range and drop the sky on them. Tony, you get ready to pick off any that try to escape.”
It did not work out that simply. As Alfie’s men closed the gap to a hundred yards, working from cover to cover, the Federation soldiers—a single squad, eight men—pulled back to new positions.
Hopewell and his half of the platoon moved toward the enemy next. They were somewhat closer after the ambushers had moved. But they did not get close enough for accurate grenade work either. The ambushers were on the move too quickly, increasing the distance between them and their pursuers.
A medical orderly worked on the commando who had been wounded in the ambush, but it was too little too late.
He died within minutes. Even if there had been time to set up the detachment’s portable trauma tube and get the man in, it might not have been enough. He had taken three rounds in the chest, a tight group very near the heart.
Alfie pushed his men forward. They finally got to within eighty yards of the enemy. “Now!” he said. The grenadiers in each squad had their launchers ready, and each dropped two rocket-propelled grenades in on the Federation soldiers. As soon as the RPGs exploded, the squads surged forward, spraying bullets and needles into the enemy positions. This time there was no return fire.
The two dead commandos were buried quickly. The Federation dead were left where they had fallen, along with one wounded man. A medic patched his wounds and gave him a pain-killing patch, but there was no way that the Marines could carry him along. Nor could they leave any functioning radio equipment with him. The radios in all of the Federation helmets were disabled, as well as those in the helmets of the two dead Commonwealth Marines.
Once the burials were finished, the commandos hurried from the site of the firefight as rapidly as they could. David ordered a thirty-degree change in direction, taking them on a line slightly farther from their goal, attempting to fool the Federation as to their course and target.
For three hours, the Marines moved at the best pace they could manage, and that was very fast. Evasive tactics and speed were not enough, though. Shortly before midday, they walked into another ambush, once more a single squad strung across their line of march, eight men who opened up on them from two hundred yards or more, picking off one of the men in the point squad this time.
This ambush ended the same way as the first. The fight was shorter, though, and there were no Federation survivors.
Once more, David changed the direction of march. Again, the commandos pushed on as rapidly as they could.
Once more, it was not enough.
• • •
“At least we didn’t lose anyone this time,” Tony Hopewell said after the third ambush. “Two men wounded, but they’ll be able to stay with us if we slow the pace a little.” It was late afternoon. Everyone was exhausted from seven hours of racing through the jungle and from the adrenaline of three firefights. There hadn’t even been a stop to eat all day.
“We’ve got to stop the attrition,” David said. “Three killed today on top of all the men we lost yesterday.” And maybe our ship as well, he thought.
“Changing directions didn’t confuse the Feddies,” Tony said. “You think maybe we should hold our course this time?”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” David replied. “Go for an hour or so, then move in under whatever heavy cover we can find and go to ground until it gets good and dark.”
“We could all use the break,” Hopewell said. “Some of the men are really starting to drag, and the wounded need a long break before we go much farther.”
Spencer nodded. “That’s the way we’ll do it. Keep going the way we were headed, stop as soon as we find thick cover. Try to throw them off that way. When we start up again, we can start bending back toward our target, slowly.”
“There is one good thing about the pace we’ve been keeping,” Tony said after a pause. “We’re making good distance.”
“But a good part of it’s been in the wrong direction. We must still be a good two days from that hotel.”
Part 3
9
Officially, the ship was HMS Prince of Wales, but for most of the fourteen decades that it had served as the primary carrier for the royal family, it had been known unofficially (and much more regularly) as the Welsh Rowboat. It had been built to the same basic plan as the Tower-class light cruisers (the last armed ship of that class having been scrapped fifty years before the start of the war). The weight saved by eliminating weaponry and ammunition allowed for the inclusion of extremely comfortable accommodations for passengers. Three kings had used it for their quinquennial tours of Commonwealth worlds and other trips. Other members of the royal family and a few senior ambassadors had also been permitted to use the ship for trips of special importance to the realm—as the reports to the Chancellor of the Exchequer invariably termed them. It was inevitable that the Welsh Rowboat be used for Prince William’s peace mission to Dirigent.
“I’m surprised she hasn’t been turned into a museum,” Ian Shrikes said as the ship’s primary shuttle ferried him, Prince William, and other members of the prince’s entourage and negotiating team up to the ship on the afternoon after their audience with the king.
William chuckled. “Don’t let her age fool you, Ian. I’mcertain that at least ninety percent of the Rowboat has been replaced and updated since she first came out of the construction docks, some of the gear more than once. She’s perfectly spaceworthy, and fitted out more luxuriously than the finest civilian passenger liner in service. Her Nilssens, for example, were replaced less than ten years ago, along with her propulsive machinery and life support systems. Nothing that really matters is more than thirty years old.”
The interior of the shuttle was more opulent than any other spacecraft that Ian had ever seen, with seats that were entirely appropriate for royal passengers. The safety harnesses were as inconspicuous as possible, but not even royal sensibilities could suffice as a substitute for gravity—real or artificial—and not even a royal shuttle was fitted with its own Nilssen generator to provide the latter. The luxury appointments meant that the shuttle could carry fewer people than its standard naval and civilian counterparts.
The trip up to Prince of Wales was comfortable, made without the hard acceleration of a military shuttle or the only slightly l
ower acceleration of a civilian passenger craft. The stresses on human bodies were kept to absolute minimums.
“I’ve never been to Dirigent,” Ian said several minutes later. He had been staring out the porthole, watching the transition from atmosphere to space. “I only know what I’ve read and heard about the place, and I’ve never been certain how much of that to believe.”
William thought for a moment before he replied. “Dirigent may well be one instance where the reality lives up to the legend. I’ve been there several times. Someone from the family calls on the leaders of Dirigent periodically, have done almost since the beginning.”
“Trying to get them to join the Commonwealth?”
“Now and then,” the prince admitted. “But they are a real power in their own right, and it has always seemed prudent to observe the diplomatic niceties. Of late, we would have welcomed the Dirigenters as allies against the
Federation. I rather think that our efforts at maintaining friendly relations with them have already paid a handsome dividend. Without their assistance, I doubt that these talks we are heading toward would be happening.”
It did not surprise Ian to find that there were layers of information that he was not privy to. He came across those reminders quite regularly. He waited to see if the prince would elaborate, but the shuttle was moving in to dock with its ship, and William concentrated on watching that.
HMS Prince of Wales was carried on the rolls of the Royal Navy. Its officers and ratings were all active duty sailors. Over the past five years there had been considerable turnover in personnel as younger officers and ratings were transferred to fighting ships, replaced with more senior personnel. It was a prestigious posting, with promotion upon completion of a tour of duty aboard the Welsh Rowboat a virtual certainty.
Prince William was received with full court honors, ruffles and flourishes, sideboys, and a receiving line of officers headed by the skipper. Captain Tobias Penworthy had a half century in uniform. He had served aboard every class of ship in the Royal Navy, including two that were no longer in service. The one mark against him was that he had never commanded a combat ship in battle. There was little chance now that he would ever do so. The only opportunity he was likely to have to make admiral was this tour as commander of the royal “yacht.”