The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  Her gaze, her perception, seemed to change, become dreamlike, as if her eyes had photographed him and she was looking at the print, a print with definition sharper, colors more vivid, than reality: sandy hair, blue eyes, his cheeks tan where the paint didn't cover them. "And you don't think so?" she heard herself ask.

  "That's right," he said quietly. "I don't." Quietly as if, again, to soften the impact on her.

  She remembered some of the trainees going to the Main Building in the evenings. When she'd asked about it, asked to accompany one of them, she'd been refused, almost the only refusal she'd received with the regiment. The drills, what the trainees did there, she was told, were personal and confidential. She'd gone to Voker then, hoping he'd overrule the refusal, but he hadn't. They were doing psychological drills, he'd repeated, to develop T'swa calm. There's another way of putting that, she told herself now. They've been psycho-conditioning these kids with some technique they didn't tell us about in Psych A and B. Something T'swa that they probably don't even know about at school.

  A chill ran over her. "So," she said, also quietly. "What do you think happens when you die?"

  "What are the possibilities? It's either the end or it's not. To me—I recycle. Maybe take a vacation first."

  "And if you're wrong? If you don't?"

  He shrugged. "If I don't, I won't know the difference because I won't exist anymore. But that's not real to me."

  What do you say to something like that? she asked herself, and getting to her feet, walked toward the opening, the meadow.

  "Tain," Mollary said from behind her, "don't show yourself in the opening. A gunship might see you and waste his time strafing here when we're already dead. It wouldn't be fair."

  Fair! His warning seemed to her an accusation, and she glared back at him without answering, then sat down a little ways within the forest edge, absently switching her recorder from on to wait. It would turn itself back on in response to any voice. Taking out her mapbook, she played angrily with it, hardly noticing what she did. Another matter surfaced in her consciousness: Why had they shown themselves to the gunship? To get an open shot at it? Would they sacrifice a squad for that? She couldn't think of any other reason, and the thought added to her anger.

  She remembered the girl she'd met the evening before, on a late walk. Lotta. They'd strolled together, talking, and Tain realized now that while Lotta had learned a lot about her, she'd learned nothing about Lotta. The girl looked no more than fifteen or sixteen, but had to be in her twenties. They'd said goodnight at the reception desk—perhaps guard station was a better word—she turning off toward the guest section, Lotta turning in the direction the trainees went for their drills.

  It occurred to Tain now that Lotta might know something about those "drills," and she determined to find and ask her.

  Less than twenty minutes later, a floater landed. She boarded it with the casualties and it took off for the compound. By then her mood had recovered somewhat, to mildly aggravated.

  * * *

  The dispatcher wouldn't send a floater to take her back to the platoon. That would tell the "enemy" where troops were. Tain wasn't really disappointed. It was nearly supper time, and she'd been with Third Platoon, F Company, since daybreak. So she was tired, despite her hobbies, recent and not so recent—dance and gymnastics in lower and middle school, track in upper school and college, and since then, backpacking, orienteering, mountain climbing, ski touring. And the workouts she did semi-regularly to stay fit for the other four.

  She'd eat and take a nap, she decided, then look up Lotta and see what she might know about the "psychological drills."

  If Lotta would talk. And she would. Tain considered herself a good interviewer—one reason, she supposed, that she'd gotten the assignment. This was only her third year on the job, but she'd demonstrated more than once an ability to get people to open up to her.

  46

  Tain's after-supper nap was deeper than she'd anticipated. It was nearly midnight when she woke up, woke just enough to take off her clothes, stumble to the bathroom, and crawl back into bed. She never even thought of Lotta. And when she got up in the morning, it was to shower hastily, eat hastily, and get shuttled to the headquarters of the 8th Heavy Infantry Brigade, "the real army," where she expected to experience the maneuvers from the other side.

  * * *

  It was not a good day. Brigadier Shiller seemed irritated that she was there, and assigned a youthful officer, Lieutenant Bertol Gremmon, to be her escort. Obviously with instructions to keep her out of the way. Politely and perhaps even regretfully, he refused her request to visit "the combat zone," and to ride a gunship on a sweep. It was, she was told, too dangerous; "accidents were possible." Both arguments she considered asinine.

  Instead she spent the day around the fringes of brigade headquarters, a meadow with enough tents and command modules to house a battalion, it seemed to her. She saw officers coming and going, saw them consult, but was allowed to hear none of it. She was also refused permission to interview the brigadier or his executive officer, or any of their aides. They were "too busy."

  She kept her pocket radio on at all times however, listening to it through her helmet receiver. The radio itself she carried in a shoulder bag. Voker, a referee and hence a neutral in this wargame, had given it to her that morning with two comments: it would access the brigade's command channel for her; and it would be best not to mention it to them. She kept the volume barely loud enough to hear and understand, and when something on it sounded particularly interesting, she reached inside the shoulder bag, adjusted the volume, and brought out a tissue to dab sweat from her face.

  Much of what she heard was too cryptic to be very informative. There were too many shorthand terms, jargon she didn't understand, and an absence of contexts. She gathered impressions from it, but only a limited and fragmentary picture.

  Gremmon didn't help much, evading or refusing any question that dealt directly with the maneuvers, till it seemed plain that Shiller didn't trust her not to tell everything she knew to the other side—the "mercenaries" as they called them, or "mercs." Gremmon ("call me Bertol, please") did answer more general questions though, and volunteered some background comments. For instance, the brigade was not at full strength. There were two regiments of mobile infantry, each with its scouts and utility floaters, gunship squadron, and squadron of combat personnel carriers. But the third regiment was armored-remote, and an armored-remote regiment was inappropriate to both the forest and the predicated "scenario" here. So its personnel, numbering about half that of a mobile infantry regiment, were being used as an over-strength infantry battalion, so the army's force here was more like a light infantry brigade.

  But a single mobile infantry regiment, the lieutenant assured her, would be more than adequate. For one thing, the mercs were "undisciplined adolescent hoodlums." (Questioning brought out that they'd gotten this reputation within the army from the administrative and supply personnel who'd processed them in.) And secondly, the army's umpires would see to it that the T'swa did not direct the merc's actions.

  The army would show those kids how professionals did it.

  Tain was smart enough not to waste her time telling Gremmon that (1) the central purpose of the maneuvers was to exercise and test the "adolescent hoodlum" commanders, few of whom were as old as twenty and none of whom had as much as a year's service; and (2) that the "adolescent hoodlums" she'd just spent six days with had been open, poised, friendly, and intelligent. Albeit with some strange viewpoints.

  By early afternoon, she and Gremmon were thoroughly tired of each other. She asked if there was material she could read on the brigade, and he was overjoyed to take her to a tent where several clerks sat at computers, writing into them occasionally, watching their screens, and monitoring something or other on headsets. Before he left her there, Gremmon provided her with a chair, a small table, and several manuals and handbooks, putting her on her honor not to leave farther than the nearby sanitary faci
lity they'd set up just for her. He also told a corporal "not to let her get lost," and to see that she got whatever she needed.

  The corporal kept her joma cup filled and hot all afternoon. If she'd tried drinking any large percentage of it, she told herself wryly, she'd have come through it bloated and waterlogged. Meanwhile she browsed the material Gremmon had given her, listened covertly to the brigade's command traffic, and thought how glad she'd be when the day was over. She wouldn't give Shiller the satisfaction of asking to leave early though.

  On her radio she overheard an interesting butt-chewing. It seemed part of a conference at brigade headquarters, rather than intended radio traffic, as if a microphone was open which shouldn't have been. Tain inferred from things she'd already overheard that the brigade's plan was to catch the mercs, or the bulk of them, in the smallest block possible surrounded by roads. Then locate armored mobile gun batteries at frequent intervals, with troops dug in between them; clear fields of fire; sweep the area with gunships, hosing anything that moved; lay artillery and lobber fire into areas where merc concentrations were thought to be; and in general to pound on the merc while keeping him at arm's length. Meanwhile the merc would be living out of his pack, and had only the ammunition he carried on his person.

  It made sense.

  The butt-chewing occurred when someone suggested to Shiller that they airlift troops to engage the enemy in the forest, causing him to expend his ammunition much faster. Shiller exploded. Couldn't "the damn fool" remember twenty-four hours? From the content of the lacing Shiller gave the man, Tain gathered that they'd airlifted a rifle company in the day before to test the enemy in the forest, and within thirty minutes, umpires had counted the entire company killed. The [unprintable young hoodlums] had taken no prisoners.

  She remembered the prolonged firefight she'd heard the day before, and supposed that was it. She also caught herself justifying the refusal to take prisoners: The regiment was operating in enemy territory as more or less separated units, without air or any other support services, and keeping to cover, with high mobility their only tactical advantage.

  Through it all, her little audio recorder was power up, keyed on by every human voice and strong sound that reached it, either live or on the radio.

  In late afternoon, at about 1620 hours, Gremmon returned to tell her that a floater was standing by to take her to the compound whenever she was ready. That, she told herself, would give her time for a relaxing shower before supper at 1800, and she accepted. On the short flight to the compound, she thought how odd it was, after yesterday, to be pulling so strongly for the regiment to win this war game.

  * * *

  After supper she went to Voker's office. Ford, his secretary, told her that Voker was gone, standing a shift as referee. She already knew that a team of four referees was over the maneuver area at all times, in a specially equipped floater, monitoring and evaluating the maneuvers and available to decide any disputes between umpires, the referees being senior. On each shift, two of the referees were ranking T'swa, or Voker and a T'swa, and two were senior army officers.

  No, Ford told her, there weren't many disputes. Major General Thromlek, Lord Carns, had been selected by the Crown to assign the army's umpires. Thromlek had been a friend of Colonel Voker's, and was known in the service for his efforts to improve training and organization. His selections would be fair. The Crown itself had assigned the army's referees—younger officers from the general staff's staff. Colonel Voker was quite satisfied that both the umpiring and the refereeing were as impartial as could reasonably be hoped.

  After supper she went to the Main Building and asked for Lotta, but was told that Lotta was busy and couldn't be disturbed. She'd probably be available around 2230. Briefly Tain wondered if the confidential services the girl performed might be sexual, then irritatedly rejected the thought. Out of curiosity though, she hung around the entrance to the Main Building for half an hour. Only a few trainees came in for drills—"casualties" home from maneuvers, she supposed. Then, in her room, she printed out and edited her recordings so far, adding commentary. She didn't try to contact Lotta again that night. She needed to go early to bed. Tomorrow would start at daybreak.

  47

  Outside her open window, black night had scarcely been tinged by dawn when Tain pulled on her field uniform. It was a strange-feeling morning, as if she'd awakened in a different time, in a world where the things that happened, and how they felt, were subtly different than she was used to. The birds sounded tentative, chirped instead of sang, as if unsure of the coming day.

  Dressed, she went downstairs to a quick breakfast with the referee teams that would stand the day shift together: two T'swa Majors, Duk and Git-Ran, and two army colonels, Vornkabel and Dorsee. They did not speak to her; their name patches were all the introduction she received. Nor did the teams exchange greetings. The two T'swa murmured occasional quiet Tyspi; the two white colonels spoke to each other even less—quietly, tersely, the content obscure.

  She did not look forward to her day.

  After breakfast, they walked to the floater pad through an overcast dawn that was chill and breezy, like autumn ahead of time. She was glad to climb inside the referees' floater.

  She found it surprisingly comfortable. There were three large window bulges on each side, for 180 observation; six swivel seats, contoured and padded; monitor screens that just now were black except for cryptic combinations of letters and numbers glowing patiently blue; and a small stainless steel restroom, sparklingly clean, which nonetheless she did not look forward to using. There was also a kitchenette, and two army orderlies, one for each team, to use it.

  One of the orderlies had been assigned to orient her, which he did quietly and concisely. Each seat had a terminal; she was not to use hers. And there was a speaker over which relevant umpire traffic would be received; also a headset for each referee and one for her, that made them privy to the command traffic of both forces.

  They took seats and the floater lifted. Apparently someone called for a situation update. The monitors lit up, rolling for them the events of an evening and night which had had little to report. As if, she thought, the opposing forces had recessed for darkness and gone home to bed.

  In minutes their floater parked over the approximate center of the maneuver area, then the floater with the nightshift bobbed a salute and left for the compound. Somewhere down there, she told herself, was F Company, and what was left of 3rd Platoon. Taking out her mapbook, she called up the largest-scale quadrangle she was sure applied, locating landmarks she could see on the ground—ponds, a stream, small scattered bogs, a grove of dark and particularly lofty koorsas towering above the canopy of broad-leafed trees—and from these approximated her present position. From her window she could see two army recon floaters some distance off, parked at a similar altitude, no doubt with instruments and possibly eyes watching for movement below. She suspected that two more were visible from the windows on the opposite side.

  There wasn't a lot of command traffic yet from either force, and what there was was mostly army. The regiment's command channel had traffic only now and then. The army's dealt mainly with troops moving on the road, and gunship reports. As best she could, Tain related these to her map and to what she could see from her window, and with her electronic pocket stylus, began to add to the map the army's designations for different roads. Before long the radio traffic began to make more sense to her.

  Something else began to take shape as the morning and the traffic went on. "Little A" was regimental headquarters, Artus Romlar commanding. "Big C" was 1st Battalion headquarters under Coyn Carrmak, "Big J" was 2nd Battalion under Jillard Brossling, and "Big K" was the 3rd. These she knew from her pre-maneuver briefing by Colonel Voker's secretary. But though there was occasional command traffic to Big C, Big C neither replied nor acknowledged. While Big K not only didn't send anything, regiment never sent anything to it! Tain found that exceedingly interesting. She knew that transmittal locations could b
e read by instrument, and it seemed to her they must be keeping radio silence to prevent brigade from determining where they were. Big J, on the other hand, did broadcast occasionally, presumably on the move to avoid the resulting gunship attacks on its points of transmittal.

  Brigade headquarters plotted the two sources of mere command traffic and found them moving on more or less parallel courses. The major source baffled them. It tended to stay in one place till attacked by gunships. Then somehow it would show up somewhere else. After a bit, and to Tain inexplicably, an order came from brigade headquarters to discontinue gunship attacks on sources of mere command traffic.

  Except for the early gunship attacks on regimental transmitter locations, almost the only action was attacks by "mercs" on hover trucks—hit and run affairs by platoons of 2nd Battalion—and gunship attacks on 2nd Battalion. Gunships responded rather quickly to ambushes on road traffic, hosing the woods in the vicinity. But having spent a day with F Company, she suspected the gunship responses weren't very productive; after a brief strike, the squads would have separated, loping off like wolves, and been well away from the ambush sites before the gunships arrived.

  By 0820, vehicles on certain roads were being convoyed by gunships. Ambushes diminished, and what there were produced fewer casualties, as if made by squads or fire teams—half squads. At the same time, the ambushes having tied up gunships, gunship attacks on targets of opportunity were fewer than they'd been.

  The more serious gunship attacks, more productive of merc casualties, were on targets of opportunity—mercs sighted from the air. The sightings were brief but the responses immediate; invariably they were followed by radio traffic between umpires on the gunships and those with the trainees on the ground, deciding on casualties. Twice it was decided that a gunship had been shot down, and twice more that one had been damaged. There was an appeal to the referees concerning one claimed "shot down." The referees compromised. It was badly damaged, they decided, but not shot down. It returned to its base and was henceforth out of action.