Lieutenant Colonel

by Rick Shelley

  It was 2317 when Lon opened his eyes again. For a few seconds, he thought that the sounds of explosions he had heard had been part of a dream. Nightmare. Then he heard another explosion, and the stutter of a rapid-fire cannon, and he knew that it was no dream. Then the siren sounded to call the men out of barracks, ready to respond to…whatever.

  Lon got out of bed, leaping to his feet, just as the glare of a secondary explosion lit up the scene outside his window. The sound of this blast took a second to reach him—extremely loud, and close. The room seemed to tremble at the concussion.

  “What the hell was that?” Lon demanded, hitting the switch on his complink that connected him to the duty officer.

  It was all of ten seconds before the duty officer, Harley Stossberg, answered. “That was your shuttle, Colonel, blown up where it sat. Air raid. Looks like two raider shuttles.”

  “Was the crew aboard?” Lon asked.

  “No, sir. In barracks.”

  Lon had already started pulling clothes on, beginning with his battle helmet. He switched to the radio circuits in that. “I’ll be down in two minutes, Harley. Get on to CIC and get all the Shrikes in we can. And get the crews into the shuttles on the ground, ready to take off. Give us something to fight back with.”

  “In the works, Colonel,” Harley said.

  Reports came in about the air attack. Two raider shuttles had come in from the west, attacking the Dirigenter craft on the ground just south of the palisaded walls, strafing the compound, then moving on to launch rockets and fire cannons as it passed over the main boulevard of Lincoln toward Government House at the far side of town. By the time Lon had his boots fastened, he knew that Government House had taken one rocket hit. The north wing—where the governor’s office was—had started to burn. There was no word on casualties. The governor and his family lived in the mansion, and there was considerable staff and security on duty there, around the clock.

  Lon strapped on his pistol belt and picked up his rifle. He ran to the stairs and down to the duty office on the floor below. His staff, in various degrees of dress, were already working the complinks. A half-dozen different conversations were in progress. Lon stopped just inside the doorway and listened. It was hard to make sense of anything in the seeming confusion.

  Major Osterman concluded one discussion, then crossed to Lon. “We’re less than a minute from having two Shrikes here, Lon,” he started. “The two that were patrolling over our people north of Long Glen. Taranto has launched another four. They’ll need seventeen minutes to get here. We have three wounded men in the compound. The command shuttle looks like a total write-off. No word yet from Government House or from in town. I looked out that way. Three or four fires started in buildings facing the boulevard between here and Government House. It’s late, so—with a little luck—there won’t be any civilian casualties in town. Not much nightlife here.” He stopped just long enough to take a breath. “Alpha Company is outside the walls, and we’ve got eight men with SAMs waiting for a shot at those shuttles if they make another pass.”

  “Any enemy activity on the ground?” Lon asked when Vel stopped his rapid recitation again.

  “No evidence of ground forces yet. They haven’t tripped any of our snoops, and CIC hasn’t picked up any of that static, except…” He stopped and shook his head.

  “Except what?” Lon asked.

  “This isn’t certain yet, but CIC thinks that—just maybe—they’ve come up with a way to get around the stealth capabilities of the enemy shuttles. We had about seven seconds’ warning before they opened fire—not enough to allow us to do anything, but enough to lend some credence to what CIC told me.”

  “Either they do or they don’t, Vel. Did they say ‘shuttles headed in’ or not?”

  Osterman closed his eyes for a couple of seconds. “What they said was, ‘There appear to be two objects moving toward Lincoln at high speed from the west-northwest. We think—’ That was when the first rocket exploded and Harley missed the end of the sentence.”

  “Something iffy?” Lon asked.

  “I haven’t had time to go over it with CIC,” Osterman said. “That would be my guess, though. Maybe they’ll be able to hone it a little better now that they know they’re on the right vector.”

  “Any new activity with our people in the field?”

  “Torry’s checking that now,” Osterman said, turning toward the complink where Captain Berger was seated.

  Before they could move close enough to ask Berger what he had learned, Corporal Howell shouted for Lon from the next complink. “Colonel! Long Snake reports a new pattern of static on the ground near Long Glen—behind our people!”

  “Warn Captains Kai and Magnusson, Jerry!” Lon shouted back. “You have details on just where this new static is?”

  “Yes, sir, between our companies and the village, closer to the village.”

  “Go on, get the word out.” Lon turned to Osterman again. “That’s what they’ve had up their sleeves.”

  “Which? Putting us in the middle of two forces, or luring us away so this new batch can hit Long Glen?” Osterman asked.

  “Either way, it stinks,” Lon said. “Get on to Brock and get Bravo Company headed toward the nearest clearing where their shuttles can get in and out. I’ll call Colonel Crampton and advise him to do the same with his militia companies there.”

  “We bring them back here or send them to Long Glen?” Osterman asked.

  Lon shook his head. “We’ll hold our options open for now, decide when they’re ready to get airborne.”

  Lon moved toward his desk as he initiated the call to Colonel Crampton, using his helmet radio. Crampton did not argue with the decision to pull everyone away from the hunt north of Damron’s Scar now. His voice was more than a little shaky.

  “I just heard that the governor and his family are unhurt,” Crampton said after agreeing to Lon’s suggestion. “But several members of the staff are either hurt or dead.”

  “You getting the fires under control?” Lon asked.

  “We’re just now getting the fire brigade out, and there are too many fires for them to get to all of them at once. I’m sending two platoons of my men to help, calling for garden hoses and civilians as well. Are those shuttles coming back?”

  “Hang on. I’ll see if we’ve got a tag on them yet.”

  It took nearly a minute. “They banked around toward the north and headed west,” Lon reported. “Then CIC lost the faint track they had. We’ve got a good vector, though, and we’ll send Shrikes to check it out. They’ll be available in a little more than ten minutes. I’m keeping two over Lincoln for defensive purposes, though. By the way, the raiders have brought a second batch of men in, between Long Glen and our people. We’ve already warned them that they’ve got trouble behind them.”

  Damage reports. Manning reports. Casualty reports. Action reports. Slowly, Lon’s staff brought order to the confusion. The two Dirigenter companies near Long Glen had started moving, circling to try to catch the new raider force on the flank. Half of the Bancrofter militia were circling the other way, leaving the rest in place between the two enemy units. Bravo Company and the militia companies with it were moving toward a landing zone. They would need another hour to reach the LZ and secure it for the shuttles that would come in to pick them up.

  Lon got behind his desk and took off his helmet. There seemed to be no imminent danger of a ground assault on Lincoln, and there was no sight of the enemy aircraft. He was just beginning to relax when he had a call from Captain Roim.

  “That unidentified ship has made a series of course changes over the last thirty minutes,” Roim reported. “It looks as if they might be coming in toward Bancroft again.”

  “Even if they are, what’ll it take them, another couple of days?” Lon asked.

  “The earliest they could reach our positions is forty-three hours, Colonel. Should I send Taranto after them again?”

  “No, we can’t afford to play cat and mouse with tha
t ship right now. If it wants to come in, let it. Let them do the traveling. We can hit them later. Just keep alert for the possibility of more potentially hostile ships coming in-system.”

  “We always do that, Colonel,” Roim said. It was 11:37 P.M., 2337 hours in military time.

  Coffee and chocolate bars. Vel Osterman lit a cigar but, after a couple of puffs, set it aside and let it go out. Reports continued to come in, but not as frequently, not as urgently, as in the first minutes after the air raid. There were soft discussions among members of Lon’s staff, men looking for proper countermeasures, new angles on the problems of Bancroft.

  Midnight. Twelve-thirty.

  “Colonel, Charlie Company and the militia unit with them will reach the LZ in approximately twenty minutes,” Captain Berger reported. “Have you decided whether to bring them here or send them to Long Glen?”

  Lon closed his eyes briefly before he replied. “Bring Charlie back here. I’ll advise Colonel Crampton to do the same with his people. Charlie’s been out. We’ll try to give them time to get cleaned up and get some sleep. Alert Alpha to move to Long Glen as soon as Charlie gets in.”

  After talking to Colonel Crampton, Lon called Captain Kai and told him the arrangements. “Your men might go back in, somewhere, almost anytime, Sefer. Make sure the rocket packs are charged and serviceable.”

  He cut Kai’s reply short to take a call from CIC.

  “Colonel, we’ve got a report from one of the Shrike pilots who tried to follow the raider shuttles. He thinks he might have spotted where one or both of them landed. Thinks,” the duty officer said. “It’s marked on the mapping computer, and we’re going to keep something in the air over that location all night.”

  Lon almost leaped to his feet. “Torry!” he shouted. “When you get Alpha assembled, they’re not going to Long Glen. We may have found where the enemy parks their shuttles. I’ll take Alpha as close as we can get. Have Bravo ready to follow us in after they’ve had a chance to get a few hours’ sleep.”

  “You’ll take them in?” Major Osterman asked.

  Lon nodded. “I’ll take them in.”

  20

  Osterman would not argue in front of the rest of the staff, but he followed Lon out of the office to make his case. “It’s hardly protocol. You have the entire contract to administer, not just one company to go chasing through the woods.”

  “This might be the entire contract, Vel,” Lon said. “If we can cripple their transportation, the rest of it gets simpler—tedious, perhaps, but simpler. I need to be on the ground, where I can see what’s going on firsthand, not back here trying to coordinate through secondhand reports. I’ll be with my old company, and there are enough people still in Alpha who have worked with me for years.”

  “I hate to say this, but you’ve been away from that kind of action a long time as well, staff assignments in garrison and more than half a year on that intelligence lark to Earth.”

  Lon smiled. “I’m not that far out of shape. The Corps has no use for deskbound officers. If I can’t cut it out there, it’s time for me to take up bartending as a trade.”

  Osterman chuckled. He knew about the pub Lon’s in-laws ran. “Okay, you’ve made your point. Just don’t take silly chances. The reason we got picked for this contract was the locals want your brain and experience behind the whole operation. Don’t make them have to be satisfied with the second string.”

  “You’ll have my full cooperation. I want you here to coordinate getting people where they need to be. If the raiders do have their shuttles parked where we think they do, they’ve probably got most of their men fairly close as well, so this operation might turn into an all-hands affair in short order.”

  “I’d say that’s another reason for you to stay here and leave this expedition to Captain Girana—or me, if you think it demands higher supervision on the spot,” Osterman said.

  “Maybe next time, Vel. You’d better get back inside, stay on top of things here. I’ll leave Phip with you, though we might have to chain him to the desk for me to get away without him. Get on to Colonel Crampton and make sure he’s ready to pour as many men as possible in on this as well. Now I need a few minutes to get ready to catch my ride.”

  I am back in shape, Lon told himself as he climbed the stairs to his room. Almost all the way. He had been pushing himself hard, to make up for the months he had been unable to maintain his normal training regimen. He was still five pounds heavier than he wanted to be, and the workouts were still a bit more difficult than they used to be, but he was fit enough to pass an annual fitness test with points to spare.

  He needed only five minutes to get his combat pack and gear. Corporal Howell kept his boss’s things in good order. Rifle, pistol, ammunition. Lon refilled his canteen, adding a single drop of lemon concentrate. He no longer recalled where he had picked up that trick. It helped keep water “fresher.”

  When Lon left his room, ready to leave, Howell was standing in the corridor, similarly attired. “My job to go with you, Colonel,” he said.

  “Haven’t you learned not to volunteer for anything yet, Jerry?” Lon asked.

  “I don’t want to stay here and listen to Lead Sergeant Steesen rant about being left behind, sir. He hurts my ears when he screams.”

  Lon chuckled. “He can get shrill. Okay, let’s go.”

  “Alpha Company is already moving out to the shuttles, sir. Captain Girana knows we’re coming along.”

  “Then we’d better hurry.” Lon moved past Howell, toward the stairs. The corporal had to scramble to stay with his boss.

  Captain Girana had already given the order for his men to board the two shuttles that would take them to Long Glen. The files of men were moving into the craft when Lon and Corporal Howell reached them.

  “Getting bored riding a desk?” Girana asked.

  “Got to get out once in a while, Tebba,” Lon responded. They talked over a private radio frequency, even though they were only a foot apart, to ensure that the conversation remained confidential. “This could turn into the main event.”

  “I thought it might,” Tebba said. “They’re not going to leave their transport far from protection. We find where the birds are, we’re apt to find most of their foot soldiers.”

  “Very possible,” Lon said.

  They moved aboard one of the shuttles together.

  “You might want to keep a special eye on Harley this time around,” Tebba said as the shuttle took off.

  “A problem?” Lon asked.

  “No, I just want your evaluation. Look, I know we haven’t talked about this before, but this isn’t a whim. I’ve been thinking it’s about time for me to hang up my boots. Get out and do something else. I’ve got nearly forty years in the Corps. Soon as Harley’s ready to take over the company, I’m out.”

  Personnel turnover was slower in the DMC than in many planetary or national armies, certainly slower than in armies of even two centuries before, but it was just as inexorable. There were, inevitably, fatalities. The business of the DMC was war, and war always exacts its price. Medical retirements were rare—trauma tubes and the extensive regenerative therapies available had almost totally eliminated the need to invalid soldiers out. Transfers between units did occur, but with minimal frequency. Ninety-five percent of all soldiers in the DMC remained within the same regiment throughout their careers; 80 percent stayed within the same battalion; 60 percent never left the company they reported to after completing recruit training. But men aged. Their priorities changed. There were no minimum enlistments: The DMC had no use for reluctant soldiers. Except on contract, a man could get his release from the Corps on seventy-two hours’ notice. Many served for ten years or less. A Dirigenter could take full retirement after twenty-five years. Fewer than one in a hundred stayed longer than thirty-five years, and in the enlisted ranks, the rate was little more than half that.

  “Do you think Harley’s ready to handle the company?” Lon asked after several seconds of silence.


  “I think this contract will tell the tale,” Tebba said. “It’s been quite a while since we had a really hot combat contract. The rest, no question. Harley can handle garrison duty and training contracts. But that’s not enough. He has to be able to shine in combat before he can take over a company. If he handles himself well here, that should remove any doubt.”

  “I’ll keep my eyes open, Tebba. Now, about this little expedition…”

  Lon spent the rest of the flight briefing Tebba and his two lieutenants, Harley Stossberg and Min Jason. Jason had been with Alpha nearly two years—had won his lieutenant’s pips as an officer-cadet in the company, on a one-company combat contract. Jason was blond, thin, and deceptively slight in build. It seemed impossible that he could march all day carrying full combat kit, but he could, without complaint. The talk in battalion headquarters was that Min Jason was a goer, likely to progress far and fast in the Corps…if he survived and didn’t make any serious mistakes. His intelligence test scores were in the top percentile in the regiment. “He’ll go far, Lon,” Matt Orlis had said more than a year before. “If he lasts, that boy will be General someday, and might set records getting there.”

  If he lasts. For a soldier, there always had to be that qualification.

  The landing zone CIC had found for Alpha Company was seven miles from the suspected position of the two raider shuttles, just east of north, across one of the lower ridges in the mountain range, with the peaks little more than four hundred feet above the flanking valleys. The shuttles circled around to land from the north-northwest, cutting engines as far as possible to minimize the noise of the aircraft.

  Lon hung back, letting the men of A Company deploy into an initial perimeter. He and Corporal Howell were the last men off the shuttles, staying out of the way during the critical first minute on the ground. As soon as the company was in position, away from the shuttles, both of those craft got back into the air, heading north again, to circle above ten thousand feet—high enough to be out of immediate range of any enemy on the ground, but close enough to provide close air support on less than a minute’s notice.