Side Show

by Rick Shelley

"Unfortunately," Kenneck said.

  "Give the order, Dezo," Stossen said. "Full out. Spread the reccers out a little more, and farther out from the main body."

  "Too far's no good either," Kenneck interrupted. "Too much chance for the Heggies to slip in between, like they almost did this time."

  "Looks like all we can do is go like hell until dark, make our course change, and hope the Heggies don't have anything close enough to pick us up until it's too late for an intercept," Ingels said.

  "And we've still got to find time to rest the men for a few hours," Parks added. "Soon as they come down from this fight, they're going to be more beat than ever. They can't go forever on stimtabs."

  Stossen closed his eyes for a moment. Sleep... what's that?

  "If we're going to get any at all," he said finally, "it won't be much. After we make our turn, we'll go to ground, get the thermal tarps spread. Maybe that'll help throw the Heggies off."

  But he couldn't help thinking, Or give them a chance to catch us.

  —|—

  It was difficult making a proper examination while the APC pounded along at forty-five kilometers per hour, but the sleep patch on Joe Baerclau would run out soon, and Al Bergon wanted to get what he had to do done before the Bear woke. As soon as the sergeant realized that he had been out for four hours, he was going to be mad, no matter how necessary the knockout had been.

  Al pulled the soaker off of Baerclau's shoulder. The wound was almost completely healed over. The new skin was an angry pink, but the cuts had healed. What Al was interested in were the three tiny pimples that had formed near the exit wound on the back of the shoulder. He swabbed them with antiseptic, then used a pair of tweezers to pop them and extract the tiny bone chips that the nanobots had deposited there. After another antiseptic swab, he put a small soaker over the area of the exit wound. The entrance wound no longer needed a dressing.

  "Well, how is he?" Ezra Frain asked.

  "Okay," Al said. "By the time he wakes up, even his blood should be replaced."

  "Good as new and mad as hell," Mort Jaiffer observed. "He's not going to like the way you zapped him."

  "I didn't zap him, he passed out," Al said.

  "If you think he'll buy that, let me sell you my return-trip pass, good for any shuttle up to the fleet," Wiz Mackey said with a sour laugh.

  The squad's three new men just sat and listened. None of them felt confident enough around the veterans yet to get into that sort of discussion without an obvious invitation. It didn't matter that all of the new men had already seen combat with the squad, that they were no longer "raw" rookies. In a fight, each of them was paired with one of the veterans, but when they weren't in a fight, they were—mostly—on their own.

  "You did the right thing, Bergon," Lieutenant Keye said from his position at the front splat gun. "The Bear gives you any grief, I'll take care of it."

  "Thank you, sir."

  Al looked at the time line on his visor, then looked at Baerclau again. Al hadn't checked the exact time when he slapped on the sleep patch, but it couldn't be good for more than another five minutes. Of course, there was nothing that said that Baerclau had to wake up precisely when the medication expired. He had been tired enough to sleep longer than that without help.

  Just then the Heyer took a particularly hard jounce and Bergon grinned through gritted teeth. If the Bear could sleep through this ride, he could sleep through anything.

  A soft groan did escape Joe's lips, though his eyes didn't open right away. Another two minutes passed before that happened. His gaze was vacant, uncomprehending, not as it would have been if he were waking normally. Joe was a veteran mudder. On campaign, he came awake instantly alert if there were the slightest possibility of enemy activity anywhere near.

  After a time, Joe blinked—once slowly and then, after a short pause, several times in quick succession.

  "What?" he managed. But his throat was dry. His voice cracked. Al put a canteen to the Bear's lips.

  "We're back under way," Al explained while Joe took a short sip of water.

  Joe took a deep breath and closed his eyes again for a moment while his mind tried to close the gap between his last memories and the present.

  "How long?" he asked finally.

  "Four hours, right on the button," Al said. "The bone chips are out of your shoulder, the wounds are almost healed, and you're fit for duty again."

  Joe moved his left arm, experimentally at first, then with more vigor. There was no pain or restriction. Then he turned his head to look.

  "Sure tore hell out of my fatigues." There was more, but now, with his head clearing, there was little chance that he would complain about being zapped for four hours. That had been the injury speaking.

  "Don't sweat it," Ezra said. "I'll slap a weaver patch over it and you'll look good as new in an hour."

  Lieutenant Keye turned and pointed at his helmet. Joe put his on to hear what the lieutenant had to say.

  "You really feeling fit?"

  Joe took time to think it over before he answered. "Yes, sir, especially with the nap. Anyone else have a chance to sleep?"

  "Only what little they could get in here."

  "Little is right," Joe said. "We're not going to be much good in a fight if the men don't get some downtime first."

  "Can't be helped. We're trying to avoid another fight. After dark, we might get a couple of hours."

  "What's the situation now, sir?"

  "We've got that second river crossing coming up soon. That's likely to be our most vulnerable time until we get near where we're going. Recon's already at the river and beyond. Last word I had was that there's no sign of Heggies."

  "We didn't get much advance word the last time," Joe commented. "The Heggies were almost on top of us before we knew they were there."

  "I think we're getting better dope now. Nobody wants a repeat of this morning."

  Joe turned on the bench and opened one of the firing ports in the side wall. It was still raining outside, heavily. The sky was almost dark enough for dusk. Joe checked the time, saw that there were still another four hours before sunset, and shook his head. Then he looked at Al again.

  "Maybe you should have hit everybody with sleep patches. That way, maybe we'd all be rested." While he talked, Joe ran his helmet's diagnostics program. The helmet had taken quite a few wire hits. Then he checked his rifle.

  "If I was sure we had the time, I'd do it now," Al said, knowing that the Bear wasn't serious. "Leave you on watch while the rest of us catch up."

  —|—

  There were only four Wasps of Blue Flight in the air. Two had been destroyed. Two were being held back to help in the defense of the main Accord foothold on Jordan. The fighting back there had been raging for more than twenty-one hours. A joke so old that its origins could no longer be traced was being repeated with distressing frequency. "The situation here is quite fluid." "What's that mean?" "It means we're up the creek."

  Zel wasn't certain that he really understood what was going on, but he had spent more than half of the past twenty-one hours in the air. He decided that he was ahead of the game if he even remembered his name. Along much of the Accord perimeter, there was no clearly definable front left. In some places, the Accord had made advances. Elsewhere, they had been forced to retreat. Units were out of contact with their flanking units. Several times, Wasps had been asked to do flybys just to locate friendly units.

  Zel yawned, then blinked and took a careful scan of his heads-up display and the two monitors on the panel below it. With a little luck, they'd get out and back this time without any fighting. Cover the river crossing for the mudders. Look for any sign of another Heggie force moving toward them. Do what you have to do. Simple, if vague, instructions. But recon work was something of a break.

  As long as no Boems showed up to contest the operation.

  "There's the river," Slee said. "To the right, angled about ten degrees right of your centerline."

  Zel looked at t
he mapboard monitor rather than out the canopy. The monitor gave a clearer view.

  "How far are we from the ford?" Zel asked.

  "Shouldn't be more than twenty klicks."

  "How far out do we stooge around?" was Zel's next question.

  "We'll do a grid search out to thirty klicks around the ford," Slee said. He and Zel would take the near side of the river, the other two Wasps the far side.

  "We've already got a few Heyers across," Slee reminded the others. "Reccers there to guard the crossing point."

  "How many Heyers?" Zel asked.

  There was a pause before Slee had the answer. "Eleven. Two full recon platoons, spread out in a semicircle."

  "There," Zel said. "Picking up those blips now." He counted carefully. Eleven—no more, and no less. Now let's see if they've got any company, he thought as he turned Blue two onto the next leg of its search pattern.

  —|—

  Colonel Stossen made certain that his APC crossed the river early, with the infantry companies that followed the first two Havoc batteries. The word from the Wasps overhead was encouraging. They hadn't spotted anything anywhere near.

  "Get across as fast as possible," Stossen told the commanders of the remaining companies and support units. "Every minute we're sitting here, the more danger we're in."

  The first men across were out of their Heyers now, in a two-tiered defensive line. There might not be Heggies close... or again, there might be.

  On another channel, Stossen told his exec. "I want to know the instant we've got half of the Team across."

  Switching channels again, Stossen talked with the leader of Blue Right. "You're sure there's no enemy activity around us?"

  "As sure as we can be, Colonel," Slee Reston replied. "They haven't even sent Boems to challenge us, and we've been drawing them the way a rotting carcass draws maggots."

  Stossen wrinkled his nose at the image. "How far out have you searched?"

  "A fifty-klick radius around your position, Colonel. Not a glimmer of Heggies. Of course, there could be a regiment of infantry and we might miss them, but there are sure as hell no tanks or trucks. Even with heat tarps, we've been low enough to pick up a magnetic signature."

  "How much time over us do you have left?" Stossen asked.

  "Twenty minutes unless you're set up to replace our batteries here."

  "Hold on a second. Let me see if your vans are across yet."

  They were, only just.

  —|—

  Slee and Zel flew broad figure-eight patterns over the 13th while the other Wasps landed for fresh batteries. As soon as the others were back in the air, Blue one and Blue two landed.

  "Slummin', are you, sir?" Roo Vernon, crew chief for the first two Wasps of Blue Flight asked as soon as Slee was on the ground. The ground crew was already moving toward the two fighters.

  "Somebody's got to keep you out of trouble," Slee replied. As usual during land-and-lift maneuvers, neither Slee nor Zel bothered to get out of his cockpit or open his canopy. They spoke with Vernon over the radio.

  "You got any idea what this is all about?" Roo asked. The depleted batteries were out of both Wasps. The new ones were being inserted and connected.

  "Not a glimmer, Chief," Slee admitted. "Thought maybe you'd picked up the dirt by now."

  "Hell, they don't tell us nothin'," Roo complained. "Didn't even know you were around till they told us to unbutton to service four Wasps."

  "See you later, maybe," Slee said. The battery hatches were sealed. Slee and Zel restarted their engines, and they were off, back up into the rain.

  —|—

  "Half the Team's across, sir," Dezo reported. It was a little more than half, actually, since all of the headquarters and support personnel were across. But half of the recon platoons, line companies, and artillery were now on the northwest bank. And the four Wasps were all back in the air.

  "Move the lead recon units out," Stossen ordered. "I'll have the Wasps check the course we're taking."

  It was only ten minutes later that Slee Reston reported a strong enemy presence eighty kilometers away, blocking the route that the 13th was on.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Everything that the sensors of Blue Flight saw was relayed directly to Bal Kenneck. Stossen gave the Wasps orders to do whatever they could to hurt the Heggies. "All out. They've got to think that we're heading straight for them with everything we've got."

  The last elements of the 13th were crossing the river. Stossen sent 1st and 3rd recon ahead with orders similar to those he had given the Wasps. Afghan Battery went with them.

  "Hold them down," Stossen told the unit commanders. "Make them think you're half the 13th and that the rest of us are right behind you."

  Stossen's staff members came to his APC for a face-to-face. The colonel had his mapboard open before they arrived.

  "This could be it," Stossen said. The others had been linked in for his orders to the Wasps and the lead ground units. "We've got to hold those Heggies where they are."

  "It looks like a reinforced regiment," Bal Kenneck said. "Two thousand men, minimum, perhaps twenty-five hundred. Two battalions of armor. I don't know where they came from. With that many assets, they must have air ready to come in when they're needed."

  Stossen shrugged.

  "There's not much chance that 120 mudders, 5 Havocs, and 4 Wasps can keep a regiment bottled up for long," Teu Ingels said. "What we need to worry about is that regiment swinging around behind us after we make the turn up into that valley. They could bottle us up without much trouble. If that happens, we'll play hell getting out. It certainly doesn't look as if there are any other routes, not that we can take vehicles over."

  "And any other routes would take us that much farther from the rest of our people," Dezo said. "The Heggies won't have to do much more than keep us occupied. We would be irrelevant to the fight."

  "As long as we do what we've been ordered to do, the rest doesn't matter," Stossen said.

  The four men did little but stare at one another for nearly a minute. The rest doesn't matter. That could only mean one thing. General Dacik had already counted them out of any further part in his plans for Jordan.

  "I think it's time I give you the rest of it," Stossen said.

  "They must be involved in something truly revolutionary," Kenneck commented when the colonel had finished.

  "There's no point in guessing," Stossen said. "Whatever it is, it won't do the Accord any good unless we can get them out, and back to our people. Off-world. Failing that..." He had already told them of the stop-loss option.

  "No chance for a pickup, even for them?" Ingels asked.

  Stossen shook his head. "Not according to the general. We're completely on our own. If we can't get them out, they don't get out." He paused before he added, "And neither do we."

  —|—

  Blue Flight stayed near the bottom of the cloud bank until the last instant. Barring the appearance of enemy fighters, their only worry was mudders with surface-to-air missiles, and as long as those mudders couldn't see the Wasps, there was little chance they could point a missile near enough to get a target lock.

  The four Wasps chose their targets and nosed over, presenting the smallest possible profile to the enemy. Zel was just behind and to the right of Slee. He showed two tanks to his first two missiles. As soon as he had the double click of target lock for the second missile, he fired both, then flipped his weapons selector to cannon. There was a lot of infantry down there with the tanks, and Blue Flight had chosen its attack vectors to allow the pilots to go directly from missile launch to strafing.

  Zel didn't bother to watch his missiles running in. His heads-up display would tell him when they hit. With ground targets, there was little chance that either missile would miss. Instead, he turned his attention to the strafing.

  Six seconds was all that his strafing run lasted. Then Zel hit full power on a vertical ascent that took him to the edge of blackout before he eased off and zigged lef
t in level flight, back in the clouds. He heard the whistles to signal missile strikes. There were no other alarms going off in the cockpit. No return missiles had been detected, and nothing else on the ground could pose any threat to a Wasp as it climbed through eight thousand meters.

  Deep in the heart of a thunderhead.

  Zel had zero visibility through the canopy. There might as well have been a coat of slate-gray paint over it. Except when a bolt of lightning flashed. But Zel rarely bothered to fly by eye in any case. The instruments were more accurate, and quicker. He could pick out the other three Wasps on his display, now spread over an area of more than ten kilometers horizontally and three vertically. They came back together, somewhat, as they prepared to stage their next attack.

  This one went the same as the first, and so did the third. There were enemy missiles coming up after them now, but none came close enough to be particularly dangerous. The Wasps could boost at the same speed as the best Schlinal antiaircraft missiles, and hold that acceleration much longer.

  Altogether, the four Wasps each made five passes. That expended all but two of the missiles that each plane carried, and more than 90 percent of the ammunition for their forward cannons.

  "Head for home," Slee said. "Yellow Flight is sending four birds to replace us." He had just received that news. He didn't mention that it would be fifteen minutes before those planes arrived. There was nothing to be done about that.

  —|—

  If the ride had been rough before, it was murder now. Joe Baerclau braced himself and tried to roll with the bouncing of the Heyer. He had his helmet on, and only the padding in that kept him from getting knocked senseless every time his head slammed against the side of the APC. The driver had the throttle cranked to the stop. Orders had come from the colonel to shift course by five degrees. Apparently, that would add a few kilometers to the distance they had to travel, and the extra speed was to keep them from losing time.

  At some point, the seal around the splat gun turret had started to leak. Water dripped into the troop compartment. It wasn't enough to do any damage, but it was another annoyance. The men closest to the leak moved as far apart as they could, but there wasn't enough room to let them get completely clear of it.