Lieutenant Colonel

by Rick Shelley

  This early, the talk could only be in general terms. Until Long Snake and the other ships reached Bancroft’s Solar System after their final transit of Q-space, detailed planning would be impossible. By that time Governor Sosa would have been out of contact with his world for more than six weeks. The current tactical situation might have changed drastically. There would be updates once the Dirigenter ships emerged in normal space three or four days out from Bancroft, and then Lon, his staff, and the governor could begin to make firm plans for the battalion.

  “Right now we can hardly rule anything in or out,” Lon told his company commanders. “There is a slight chance that Bancroft’s constabulary militia will have managed to get the upper hand on the raiders since Sosa left. There is also a chance that the raiders will have been so successful that the militia is more or less bottled up in Lincoln and the other towns, that they will have been forced to abandon the smaller mining camps and villages. Or the situation could be anywhere between those extremes.”

  “Can’t go too far wrong assuming the situation will be closer to worst-case than best,” Captain Kai of C Company said. “That way, any surprises are liable to be pleasant.”

  “If the miners all just pulled back to the cities and quit working, pretty soon the raiders wouldn’t have any decent targets. They’d either have to do the hard work themselves or leave,” Captain Carlin of Bravo said. “If what you said before about those raiding operations having to pay for themselves is right.”

  “Wouldn’t make the government of Bancroft look very good to just pull back and hide,” Lon said. “They’d probably be voted out of office as being unfit to govern if they couldn’t do anything to protect the miners and keep production going. Not to mention how fast they might go broke.”

  “Same result if the miners go on strike on their own say,” Tebba Girana of Alpha said. “It’s the miners who are on the front line, in the line of fire when the raiders come around.”

  “The point is, make sure everyone knows why we don’t have any initial plan of operations, and why we won’t have one until we come out of our final Q-space jump and have time to get updated information from the ground,” Lon said. “Work the men hard on the Bancroft database, especially physical conditions, flora, and fauna—the things that can’t change all that much in a few years. The shuttles the raiders used last time—armed shuttles like ours, but smaller. The tactics the raiders used, on the ground and in the air. Those may have changed, but we need a starting point.”

  It was always a difficult job, finding practical use for the time in transit. Meals, sleep, and exercise could use only so many hours each day. There could be no field exercises in a troop transport. There were no furloughs, passes, booze, or women. Officers and noncoms tried to keep gambling to a minimum. But there were always empty hours, and giving men too many of them to lie in a bunk and think about what might be coming was no good either.

  That included the commanding officer.

  Lon tried not to be too intrusive, tried to be careful to avoid giving his men any reason to think that he might be nervous about the contract. Put on an act if you have to, his first commanding officer had advised. You might try amateur theatricals if you need help.

  It was easier now. Lon had a lot of practice at projecting confidence. There were only a few men he allowed to see past the mask. Phip and Tebba were old friends as well as subordinates. Lon was learning to trust Vel Osterman enough to let him see behind the facade. In any case, if nerves did intrude, Lon could retreat to his office, the aloof commander pondering Bigger Questions. In private, he sometimes simply went through the personnel files on his complink, studying ID holographs as much as anything, wanting to be able to put a name with each face under his command, hoping to know a little about each of his men. He had been executive officer of 2nd Battalion long enough that it wasn’t an overwhelming problem. He knew most of the men, at least enough to call them by name.

  Five days out: one transit through Q-space, out from Dirigent to one of the major navigational routes. Eight days out: the big jump along the well-charted travel lane. Eleven days out: the jump in toward Bancroft.

  Immediately following the final jump through quantum space, Lon went to the main communications center just aft of Long Snake’s bridge to meet Governor Sosa and Captain Roim.

  “We’re waiting for my deputy governor to get to his office,” Sosa said. “I’m sure you’ll remember him, Dan Henks, former commander of our constabulary militia. Government House knows we’re in-system. As soon as I give Dan the authorization code, they’ll start transmitting everything they have for us on the current situation. Then we can make real plans for our landing and initial movements.”

  Lon nodded. “Captain Roim, are we picking up any sign of other traffic in-system?”

  “Not yet, Colonel,” Roim said. “All three ships are actively scanning, of course. We’ll continue that as long as we’re here. Ground as well as space, once we’re close enough to do you any good with ground tactical.”

  “I always feel a lot better when I know we’ve got good eyes watching out for us, Captain.”

  That conversation was tabled when Deputy Governor Henks came on-line.

  “Roger, am I glad to see you back!” Henks said, mopping sweat from his forehead. “We’ve had trouble. The raiders attacked Lincoln last night. It was just hit-and-run, not a lot of damage, but it’s got people in a panic here.”

  9

  Several small mining camps had been abandoned in the past weeks—sites where miners worked a month shift, than went home to families in towns or villages for a month. Militia garrisons had been strengthened in the permanent mining villages, but that drained manpower from Lincoln, the only real city on the planet. No mining was done in or right around the capital, but all of the refined precious metals, minerals, and rare elements passed through it before going off-world in Bancroft’s normal trade.

  As soon as Lon and the others had the initial data feed from Government House, they took time to study the material and confer. More updates came in. Dan Henks provided almost hourly reports on what was happening.

  “It could have been worse,” Roger Sosa confided to Lon and Captain Roim. “It’s bad enough, the first strike against the capital, against any of our larger towns, but I’ve had nightmares about how bad it might have been.”

  Lon kept his face blank. He could understand what the governor was hinting at. “Fear was probably what the raiders were trying to sow, Governor. If a small raid against Lincoln forces you to hold forces back from protecting the mines, they’ve eased their primary job.”

  “It would have worked if we didn’t have your people coming in,” Sosa said. “We would have had no choice but to defend Lincoln and the other towns. We’ll turn the entire militia camp over to your regiment, Colonel Nolan, the main camp, there at the edge of Lincoln, where your company stayed before. Unless there’s a raid in progress when we get close enough to land, the best thing would be to put all your people down where folks in the capital can see just how much help we’ve got.”

  “I’ll have A Company alerted for possible diversion in case there is a raid going on,” Lon said. “That’s where most of the men who were here before are. Taranto will have fighters ready to move in as well. Two or three Shrikes can put quite a hurt on ground forces that don’t have any air cover, especially if the raiders aren’t expecting attack from above. If there’s no immediate action, they can do a flyover while the shuttles are landing, give you a little extra show.”

  “Is A Company the one trained with rocket packs?” Sosa asked.

  Lon shook his head. “That’s Charlie, and the packs are stowed on Tyre. We’re not in position to use them going in, Governor. I don’t want to risk one company when there’s no chance to get reinforcements to them, not until we’ve had time to get a firsthand evaluation of the situation.” Lon and his men had been surprised by raiders using rocket packs to land men in a heavily wooded area, where no shuttle could land, dur
ing their previous contract on Bancroft. “Besides, this is hypothetical, since we don’t know that there will be a raid in progress when we’re ready to land.”

  Governor Sosa was unable, or didn’t try, to completely suppress a low sigh. “It would be nice to be able to hit them hard before they know that we’ve brought in outside help,” he said.

  “Nice, but not essential, Governor,” Lon said, managing a smile. “I agree, it would be dramatic, but I don’t think your problem is going to be solved that quickly.”

  “No, of course not, but still…”

  • • •

  OSI had done a remarkable job working with the material Alpha Company had brought back from Bancroft nine years earlier. They had edited tens of thousands of hours of video taken from ships in orbit, by shuttles during all of their operations, and through cameras mounted in the helmets of officers and noncoms. The resulting maps and overlays provided a high-resolution photographic atlas of a large section of Bancroft’s primary continent, along with moderately detailed surveys of the rest of the planet’s surface. The result was that 2nd Battalion was going in with far more precise knowledge of the physical conditions on the contract world than the Corps usually enjoyed…“only” nine years out of date. For Lincoln, the three other main towns, and several of the largest villages, that meant that almost every building was pinpointed. All of the smaller villages and mining camps were located, though terrain or tree cover had prevented building-by-building charting.

  Long Snake had the complete map database in its Combat Intelligence Center computers, which could feed information to the complinks and mapboards that officers and noncoms carried. The maps would be updated constantly once the Dirigenter flotilla was in position over the inhabited continent. New buildings, new villages, new mining camps would be added. Abandoned camps and villages could be annotated. There was a slow but constant shift to mining sites, apart from the movements dictated by the latest raids. Old lodes played out. New deposits were discovered.

  Governor Sosa and his aides had pointed out where some of the new sites were. Those were indicated by a separate overlay on the map, to be replaced once direct video and topographical charting could be done.

  “We’ve managed to increase our population substantially since you left here before,” Sosa told Lon during one conference over the map. “We advertised for new settlers from some of the older colony worlds and brought in nearly twenty thousand people, and our people have also been doing their best to build up the population the old-fashioned way.”

  Nine years earlier, the DMC had estimated Bancroft’s population at three hundred thousand. As a result of that first contract, the estimate had been increased by 20 percent. Now Lon suspected that the number was probably over half a million—still relatively small for a world that had been opened to colonization more than a century earlier.

  “Remember, this is subject to last-minute change if there’s anything going on when we get into the landers,” Lon said as his staff and company commanders gathered twelve hours before the scheduled start of landing operations. “We hold Alpha back, in the shuttles but not launched, until the rest of the battalion is on the ground. Bravo will be first in, to establish contact with the constabulary militia and to provide a security perimeter around the militia base at the edge of Lincoln. My headquarters detachment will go in behind Bravo. Charlie and Delta will follow us. As soon as we’re organized enough to be able to get Charlie and/or Delta dispatched to meet any raid, we bring Alpha in. We’ll have Shrike coverage throughout the landing operation. Taranto will try to keep four Shrikes in position to provide immediate support during this phase. After that, I expect to keep the Shrikes on alert status, ready to lend ground support or to intercept any ships coming in-system.”

  “You going to keep some of the shuttles on the ground?” Tebba asked.

  Lon nodded. “Probably half; rotate shuttles and crews between Long Snake and the ground. That gives us the means to move two full companies at a moment’s notice, or to use shuttles for ground support.” Dirigenter shuttles carried rockets and multibarreled, high-speed 20mm cannon pods. Though not as fast or as maneuverable as Shrike fighters, the assault shuttles were armed nearly as well.

  “I expect we’ll have at least one day, possibly more, before we begin mounting offensive action,” Lon continued. “Subject, of course, to what the raiders do. I’d love to have two or three days to get us settled and making regular patrols before we have to react to enemy action, but that’s beyond our control.”

  “If there’s something going on when we get up in the morning, Alpha goes right in on top of it?” Tebba said. It wasn’t really a question. He merely wanted to get the plan verified once more.

  “That’s the plan,” Lon agreed, nodding. Lon had little doubt that Tebba Girana was his best company commander. Like nearly half of the officers in the Corps, Tebba had come up from the ranks. If he remained in the DMC long enough, Tebba would be a battalion commander someday. But that was a big if. Tebba already had thirty-seven years in uniform. He was also Lon’s oldest company commander, by more than a decade.

  “Make sure your men know the plan, and how it might change,” Lon told his captains. Don’t let them think that the Old Man doesn’t have a plan or can’t make up his mind, he thought. That would be bad for morale.

  “At least we shouldn’t have to fight our way ashore,” Lon told Vel Osterman after the meeting broke up. The two were alone in Lon’s office.

  “Amen to that,” Vel said. “No hot landings, no one targeting us before we can get out of the box.”

  The box: Infantrymen felt—and were—helpless in their landers, unable to defend themselves, subject to having their ride blown apart around them. Coming in on a hot landing—opposed by ground forces or enemy air cover— could be the stuff of nightmares. Until a Dirigenter could get out of the box and in position to contribute to his own defense, he was as helpless as a chick still in the egg. And knew it.

  “I know we didn’t discuss this before, Vel, but I want you to ride in with Alpha. I’d rather go with them myself, but”—Lon spread his arms in a helpless gesture—”that would be setting a poor example. I need to ride with the bulk of the battalion, go in with the governor, and so forth.”

  Vel nodded, not mentioning the thought he had entertained, that Lon would choose to go in with his old company, especially if something was definitely happening on the surface when it was time to climb into the boxes. The executive officer had been prepared to argue the point with his boss. He was glad it would not come to that—not on their first contract together.

  “Chances are we’ll get in first,” Vel said. “Be on the ground before the raiders hit anywhere. Sosa said the pattern has been several days between raids, sometimes a week.”

  “Not a firm pattern,” Lon said. “They’ve been careful not to establish a hard pattern.”

  “It’s what any professional would do,” Vel said.

  “And I expect we’ll be facing professionals, Earth-trained officers who’ve had the time to train a cohesive fighting force.” Maybe some of them who trained at The Springs, took the same courses I did, Lon thought. That could cut both ways, give him a slight edge on what the enemy might do…and give them some idea of what he might do. He got to his feet. “Let’s get some supper, then try to get some sleep. Morning isn’t going to wait for us.”

  Supper, a walk-through of the troops’ bays, a few words here and there. By the time Lon got back to his cabin, Drop Hour was less than nine and a half hours away. Reveille would be two hours before that.

  This might be the last night of undisturbed sleep you get for three months, Lon told himself as he undressed. You’ve got to take advantage of it. He had a sleep patch laid out on the stand next to the bed; that would guarantee him a minimum of four hours’ undisturbed sleep. In his younger days, he would have tried—and likely failed—to get by without the patch, tossing and turning while he fretted about everything that might conceivably go wrong
, leaving himself in less than first-rate shape for the landing. With an entire battalion depending on him, he could no longer afford such a foolish indulgence.

  “Don’t let me fail my men,” he whispered. He turned out the light, lay down, and put the sticky side of the patch against his neck. In five minutes he was asleep. There were no dreams to disturb his quiet…one more telling reason for him to resort to the help.

  Morning. During the journey from Dirigent to Bancroft, the ships had gradually adjusted shipboard time so it would agree with local time in Bancroft’s capital. On the day of the landing, sunrise was scheduled in Lincoln at 0627 hours, by the military clock. Reveille in the troop bays of Long Snake was at 0430 hours. The men would be ordered to their shuttles at 0615, and the landing craft would start the ride down to the surface at 0630. Clockwork. Schedules.

  Corporal Jeremy Howell, Lon’s clerk and aide, knocked on the bedroom door at 0415 hours—as instructed. He waited thirty seconds and, when he had heard no response from inside, opened the door and turned on the light.

  “Colonel, time to get up,” Howell said in a conversational tone as he closed the door behind him. “Coming up on reveille.”

  Lon opened his eyes a little, squinting against the glare of the ceiling light. “I’m awake, Jerry,” he said, though his voice was scarcely evidence of his words. “No problems?”

  “I guess not, sir,” Jeremy said. If there had been a problem in the night, the battalion commander would have been wakened and told long before his clerk learned of it.

  “Okay.” Lon sat up, still squinting. “I’ll check with Captain Roim while I have breakfast. You check on the exec and Lead Sergeant Steesen. Ask them to eat with me. I’ll need twenty minutes to shower and dress.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll see to it. The lead sergeant is already up. I saw him heading toward Alpha’s quarters on my way here. He was already dressed for departure.” Jeremy Howell had been four years old when Lon entered the DMC. Howell had earned his corporal’s stripes on a combat contract a year ago, after less than six years in the Corps. And there was a good chance he would make sergeant following this contract. Lon had taken an almost parental interest in his aide, who had lost his own father, a platoon sergeant in Delta Company, when he was only three.