War To The Knife

by Grant, Peter

  “That’s not a bad idea at all,” General Allred said thoughtfully. “I agree that making the enemy complacent will probably work to our advantage.”

  Maria stirred in her seat. “I agree that it’s the Council’s decision, but shouldn’t our troops also have a say? I’m sure most of them will agree without hesitation – after all, as you’ve reminded us, General, we’ve known for some time that there can only be one end to our resistance. However, perhaps one in ten of our soldiers still have wives and children, or parents, or siblings. They shouldn’t be asked to abandon them to the whims of fate. In fact, I suggest we offer such people the opportunity to retire from military service, to try to reintegrate into civilian life. Most of them have long since moved their families to quieter regions. The Bactrians have so far left farmers and ranchers alone, because they need the food they produce. We could give each family part of our accumulated funds in Bactrian bezants, and help them establish farms or ranches or take over those left empty by others who’ve died in the fighting. Let them go with our blessings. Those who explicitly volunteer for what they know will probably be a one-way mission can carry out the attack.”

  Gloria nodded. “I like that idea. I’ll second it.”

  “Thirded,” another council member called.

  “Any objections?” Gloria waited, but no-one else spoke. “Passed by unanimous consent. If we approve the attack – which I suspect we will - we’ll look into how best to implement that measure as well. Thank you, Maria.” She transferred her gaze to her husband. “What else do we need to discuss in order to make a decision on whether to attack the Satrap or not?”

  “There are several factors. I’ll lay them out for you, and ask you to think about them while we evacuate to our Laguna Peninsula base and I discuss the option in general terms with our soldiers. If we don’t get enough volunteers for a one-way mission, there’s no point in approving it, is there?” There were murmurs of agreement around the table. “I think it’ll take several days to come to a decision, based on all the consultation that has to be done and the simultaneous movement of our people from widely scattered bases to the new one.”

  He turned to Jake. “While we’re doing that, I’ve got a special mission for your regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Carson. I need you to reconnoiter the garrison at Caristo. See whether you can steal fuel cartridges for our shuttles’ micro-reactors and reaction mass for their thrusters. If we can use them against the Satrap, they’ll be invaluable; and even if we don’t, having them available in case of need will also be very worthwhile.”

  “Sure, Sir. I’ll need someone who knows shuttles to help us decide what to take.”

  “All right. Take your son and Sergeant Gray back to Caristo with you. They can enjoy a bit more time together, and she can tell you more about what we need.”

  “Will do, Sir. I’ll have them meet me there. We’ll try to be back at the Laguna Peninsula base in four days, to be available by the time you make your decision.”

  “Fair enough.” He held out his hand. “Good luck.”

  March 7th 2850 GSC

  CARISTO GARRISON

  “Freeze!”

  Dave’s whispered warning stopped Tamsin in her tracks. She forced herself to remain motionless, ignoring the tiny midges that crawled over her face and body to drink her perspiration, making her skin itch, getting into the corners of her eyes and making her blink. From behind them she heard the faint whisper of a hoversat’s rotors approaching. It passed low overhead, its sensor turret turning lazily as it scanned its surroundings. The hum of its electric motor died away as it moved on down the hillside, disappearing into the gloom of the night.

  “OK, you can go on now.”

  “I don’t see how it missed us. It was so close I could almost have touched it!”

  He chuckled. “Doesn’t matter. Sergeant Dixon’s a wizard at electronic warfare. He tapped into the watch console in the guardroom months ago. It controls the perimeter hoversat. When needed, he can disable its sensor turret so that it moves and looks normal, but doesn’t pick up anything. He did that tonight, but you never know for sure that it’s worked until you run into it and it doesn’t react to your presence. Clearly, his patch is working fine. He also replaced its feed with one we recorded earlier, so the guards on duty are seeing it moving over empty terrain with nothing to report. When we finish, he’ll restore the circuit.”

  She chuckled delightedly. “Damn, he’s good if he can do all that!”

  “He’s the best I’ve ever seen – but then, he’s had plenty of practice, like all our EW techs. That’s one way we’ve stayed alive so long, by deceiving Bactrian drones big and small.” He nudged her elbow and pointed to a bush ahead and to the right. “We’ve excavated a hollow beneath that bush. There’s room for both of us to lie there under cover where we can’t be seen.”

  They wriggled their way beneath the low encroaching branches, and settled down with mutual sighs of relief. She took binoculars from her pouch. As she powered them up and focused them, he extracted an electronic clipboard and prepared to make notes.

  “All right,” she began, peering intently through the image-stabilized lenses at the brightly-lit hangar inside the perimeter fence, several hundred meters ahead of and below their position. “They’re pulling a late shift – must be trying to get the overhaul finished as quickly as possible. Let’s see… Looks like three shuttles are already done. They’ve been washed, which wouldn’t have happened if they were still waiting for maintenance. The last one has all its hatches and access panels open. I can see through the rear door that the inside floor panels are raised as well, so they’re even servicing the reactor and generator. This isn’t just routine maintenance, it’s a full-scale overhaul. If they’re doing that to all four shuttles, they’ll be as good as new by the time they finish.”

  “I take it we haven’t done the same for our two birds?”

  “You must be kidding! We don’t have qualified mechanics for a start – we learned what we needed for basic maintenance from the on-board documentation, but that’s designed for the flight crew, not for technicians. It isn’t comprehensive enough for full maintenance. Also, we don’t have access to a full toolkit or spare parts. I wish we did!” She sighed. “Ours run rough and they’re long overdue for overhaul, but that’s not about to happen. At least the SS shuttle we captured in the Matopo Hills is in great shape.”

  “So it wouldn’t help us to steal some tools and spares from the maintenance people?”

  “Not really. We’ll just take fuel cartridges and reaction mass. It would be great if we could steal some missiles and plasma cannon magazines, too. We have no missiles left at all, and only five magazines.”

  “Those missiles are big heavy things. There’s no way we could carry them out by hand and get them through the perimeter fence.”

  “You’re right. It’s a pity we can’t just fly in with our shuttles and load them right here,” she said wistfully.

  Dave laughed aloud, but then suddenly fell silent. After a moment he said, “D’you mean that?”

  “No, of course not! I was only joking.”

  “I’m not. What if we could do that?”

  She rolled over to look at him, eyes wide. “You can’t be serious!”

  “Think about it. The platoon from Caristo will take two shuttles to the Satrap’s parade, right?”

  “I presume so – one platoon’s normally divided between two birds.”

  “OK. Their best soldiers – not that that’s saying much! – are being drilled until they drop to get them ready for the parade, while the others do the donkey work of cleaning equipment and getting it into a state fit for inspection. When the good ones head for Banka, what will be left here are the dregs. They’ll be exhausted and probably rebellious as hell after all this hard work. As soon as their Captain leaves for the parade most of them are going to get blind stinking drunk. What if we hit them that night and steal everything we can use, including their two newly-serviced shuttl
es?”

  Her jaw dropped as she stared at him. “I… it would… you really are serious!”

  “I sure am. We know this place backwards. I could walk through that garrison blindfolded and point out everything important. Besides, their new boss will be leading the parade contingent, leaving Sergeant-Major Garnati in command in his absence. We know him, and we know his weaknesses. I think we could take care of the remaining platoon without too much trouble.”

  “But – but if you could do that now, why haven’t you done it long ago?”

  “We’ve been under orders not to make waves out here. This is a secure base area for us. We don’t bother them, they don’t bother us – it’s an unwritten understanding. However, if it helps us nail the Satrap I guess that won’t apply any longer.”

  “Uh-huh.” Her mind raced. “One of our shuttles is completely out of fuel for its reactor. The other still has one cartridge. If we steal a fuel cartridge from here before we leave, plus a few hundred liters of reaction mass, that’ll be enough to bring our two shuttles here to fill their tanks and load them with weapons. If we steal two newly-overhauled shuttles as well, we’ll have four of them – five, with the SS shuttle. That’ll make General Allred very happy!”

  “Do we have enough pilots to handle that many?”

  “Oh, sure. There are half a dozen of us who’ve flown our captured shuttles in combat. We’ll have more trouble finding Weapons System Operators. We cross-trained heavy weapons operators for that job, but there are only a few left out of those with shuttle training. All the rest have been killed on operations.”

  “OK.” Dave thought for a moment. “Let’s finish our observations, then go talk to Dad and plan an attack on the garrison, in case the General gives us the go-ahead.”

  ~ ~ ~

  They didn’t get back to the ranch outside town where they were staying until after midnight. They found Jake waiting for them in the kitchen with a late supper ready for them.

  “Rissa slow-roasted two sassaby haunches all day, and we had one for supper,” he informed them, rubbing his belly while rolling his eyes ecstatically. “I managed to save two plates for you, although it took some mighty strong threats and a glimpse of my knife to keep off the ravening hordes. I hope you’re duly grateful.”

  Tamsin hugged him. “Thanks, Almost-Dad-in-law!”

  He blinked at her. “Say that again?”

  “Well, you were going to be my father-in-law until the Bactrians interfered, weren’t you?”

  He sighed. “I guess so. You two are as good as married anyway – since you met each other, neither of you has looked twice at anyone else – so I may as well make the most of my unofficial status! Anyway, eat up, then tell me what you found.”

  Pausing occasionally to consult Dave’s notes or examine an image taken through Tamsin’s electronic binoculars, they provided exhaustive details of the activity around the garrison’s shuttles and the cornucopia of spares, supplies and weapons that the visiting maintenance team had brought with them. Dave confirmed that they’d learned enough to be able to mount a quick in-and-out theft mission the following night, then went on to outline his idea about raiding the garrison as soon as one platoon had departed for the Satrap’s parade.

  Jake rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That’s an almost indecently good idea,” he said slowly. “We’ve always kept a low profile out here, but if we’re going to mount a major operation against the Satrap our cover will be blown anyway, so why not make a virtue out of necessity? In fact…”

  He fell silent, eyes were far away in thought. When Dave tried to ask him what was on his mind he held up his hand, palm outward. At last he looked at them. “How’s this for a plan? There are half a dozen outlying garrisons like Caristo, each with four shuttles. We’ve used several of them as base areas for our people to lay low between operations. I daresay each garrison will do the same as Caristo – send half their people and half their shuttles to this parade. What if we hit all of them that same night, kill everyone still there, and steal their remaining shuttles and all the weapons we can hang on them?”

  Dave and Tamsin looked at him in open-mouthed amazement. “That would be a hell of an achievement, but do we have forces near enough to all of them?” his son asked.

  “We have people close to four of them, including Caristo. We might be able to move other troops to deal with the remaining two.”

  “Do we know them all as well as you know this garrison?” Tamsin asked. “If not, it’ll take a lot of hard work in a hurry to gather enough intelligence to be ready in time.”

  “Good point. We might have to restrict ourselves to those we know well. Even so, if we hit three or four of them that’ll get us six to eight more shuttles plus their heavy weapons. If we use them to attack the Satrap’s parade, they’ll give us a much better chance to kill him and the Crown Prince. It’ll still be a one-way mission, but success will be much more likely.”

  “What about pilots and Weapons Systems Operators?” Dave asked. “Do we have enough to handle that many shuttles?”

  Tamsin nodded confidently. “Apart from those already trained, we have a few people who used to fly cargo shuttles and cutters for the old Orbital Authority. An assault shuttle’s not that different. They’re all flown by computer, of course; we just tell the computer what to do. I reckon we could bring the cutter and cargo shuttle pilots up to speed in a week of intensive classroom work plus a dozen hours of stick time in our new assault shuttle. As for more WSO’s, any qualified heavy weapons specialist can learn to operate the shuttles’ systems in about the same length of time.”

  Jake rose to his feet. “I’m glad to hear it. You get some sleep. I’m going to think about this some more, and call the General first thing in the morning. If he likes the idea as much as I do, there’ll be a lot more work for us before the big attack.”

  March 8th 2850 GSC

  TAPURIA: MILITARY GOVERNOR’S COMPOUND

  “What the hell are they playing at?” Major-General Huvishka’s voice was simultaneously angry, incredulous and frustrated as he looked down from the glassed-in viewing gallery at the continental map displayed on the Operations Table. It still showed unit symbols and their directions of movement during that morning’s operations. “Not a soul at any of the three bases, and not a single booby-trap set! They’ve just vanished as if they never existed!”

  “This clearly demonstrates that our intelligence evaluations were correct, Sir,” Captain Zargham said stiffly. Her black Security Service uniform stood out among the other officers wearing Army brown. “We’ve been saying for some time that the terrorists’ numbers have dwindled to such an extent that they’re no longer capable of posing a major threat to us. This proves it. It also shows the Satrap’s wisdom in deciding that now is the time to replace the Military Governorship by a civilian administration, since the threat of armed conflict is almost at an end.”

  The General glared at her. “And what do you suggest killed your late superior, Colonel Kujula, and his SS guards and interrogators, and a reinforced platoon of my combat engineers? Rabid mice, perhaps?”

  “No, Sir,” she replied resentfully. “That was probably done by survivors of the destruction of the terrorists’ Matopo Hills base. It must have taken at least a platoon-sized unit of the enemy to defeat a reinforced platoon of our combat engineers. There’s no way a unit of that size could have made its way to the Matopo Hills from another sector without being detected. Our intelligence is too good and our sensor network too tightly woven.”

  “I seem to recall Major Moshira making a similar claim prior to our assault on the Matopo Hills,” Captain Dehgahn pointed out. “However, according to the intelligence he himself certified as correct, we expected to find over three hundred rebels there. When we counted the bodies, there were less than two hundred and fifty. What happened to the others?”

  “That’s precisely my point, Captain,” she said icily. She clearly didn’t feel that she had to show respect to Army officers of equ
al rank to hers. “Those fifty-odd ‘missing’ rebels are obviously the ones who attacked our combat engineers and Colonel Kujula. We don’t know where they may have been hiding. I suggest they probably used another cave in the same area, one that the Army assault force failed to find. If they never left the area, of course our sensor network couldn’t have detected their passage, because there was no passage. They came out after the raiding force had departed, and were busy salvaging what they could after its inadequate attempts to demolish the base. They may even have been trying to find the same evidence Colonel Kujula went there to collect. As it happens, they were sufficiently strong to overwhelm the engineer unit he sent. His mistake was not in sending them, nor in going there himself, but in trusting the raiding force’s demonstrably false claim that all enemy units in the area had been eliminated.”

  “And where did the rebels go after that?” General Huvishka demanded. “Your sensor network still hasn’t shown any indication of fifty-odd people moving out of the area.”

  “No, Sir; but I doubt that they all survived. Combat engineers are also soldiers. I presume at least half the rebels, if not more, were killed in the fighting. Their bodies must be beneath the heap of rock and soil where the base used to be. The terrorist survivors buried all the evidence of their presence under a landslide, including their own dead, then made their escape in small groups on foot or in single vehicles, both of which are much harder to detect than large groups.”

  “I suppose that’s feasible,” he admitted reluctantly. “Unfortunately, it’s also speculation – and it doesn’t clarify why we’ve found no rebels in the other three bases you identified.”

  “No, Sir. We’ll have to capture more rebels and interrogate them to find out what happened there.”

  “And since they show a distinct aversion to being taken prisoner, I daresay that will take some time, eh?”