The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  When the Klestronu gunship went down, anti-aircraft guns began at once to fire, beams slicing the sky, seeking the enemy craft that remained. Instead of trying to escape, the gunship challenged them, thinning them, its descending tracers a delicate, hypnotic stitchery in the darkness, before it fell abruptly in a flurry of coruscating lights.

  The sky went quiet, and the three CPCs moved in low and fast, at first undetected, drawing no fire. Then small-arms fire stormed first at one, then at a second. Their flight paths converged toward the center of the enclosed base, and the muster ground there. They slowed abruptly, pressing their pilots against their straps, then landed. Their doors shot open.

  Men sprinted for one of them, several falling as they ran. Others, in a cluster, sprinted toward a second. The first group clambered in, and the floater launched while her door was still closing. She accelerated sharply, keeping low, barely clearing the tents in front of her, and with scarce feet to spare passed over one fence, another, beams slashing at her, then sped off across a field pursued by only random fire. Behind her, the second took a different though similar course. But the men who'd boarded her were marines. One threw a grenade into the cockpit. It roared, and skidding, the craft took out a row of tents, hit an antiaircraft emplacement and somersaulted. The third had risen last and without boarders, climbing vertically to decoy attention and fire. It was hit, staggered. More antiaircraft beams stabbed and sliced, till it plummeted, hit the ground heavily and broke in two.

  * * *

  In the first floater, Jerym got to his knees, then to his feet. Hot metal reeked. Around him in the rear of the troop compartment, other men picked themselves up. There'd been no time to belt down or even sit, and abrupt acceleration had sent them sprawling.

  He counted heads. Eleven including himself. Eleven out of forty-two. Not enough to feel like celebrating, but eleven more than he'd had any right to expect. And the platoon had ravaged the Klestronu ground command structure—officers and equipment.

  Crouching apelike against possible maneuvers, he went forward and congratulated the pilots. The copilot grunted the only acknowledgement; their attention was fully occupied, intent on monitors, instruments, and what was visible in the night through the scorched and spalled armorglass windshield.

  Appreciation delivered, Jerym went aft and belted himself into a seat. He was alive. How many of the original 2nd can say that? he thought. Romlar and Carrmak, but they haven't been exposed to combat. And probably Esenrok; company commanders don't get exposed all that much either. But of the guys who've been in the thick of it, there's Presnola and Markooris, wounded and ported back to Iryala; and maybe half a dozen more. Add the H Company survivors and we've maybe got a squad and a half.

  Why me?

  He'd almost given himself up, back when the Klestroni had rushed them. Well, maybe not almost, but for an instant he'd felt an impulse to crawl beneath one of the tent floors, then turn himself in when the fighting had stopped.

  It had been brief, like a sort of mental hiccup.

  It seemed to him that he must have known then what had caused it, though he'd had no time to look at it. Beneath that impulse had been the hidden idea: Get taken prisoner, taken up to the flagship, and be with Tain. Somehow be with Tain and help her remember, help her be Tain again. Go to Klestron with her.

  Crazy! They'd have questioned him and learned about the teleport, and how they'd been beaten—the tricks and tactics and technology used. Guys had died to keep those things secret. Tain had, in a way.

  He hadn't come close to doing it, of course. But he'd had the impulse. And it had soiled him. I'll talk with Lotta, he thought, have her clean me up.

  Or am I making too much of this? Everyone's flawed in some way.

  Then a question struck him, one she might well ask: What good is a flaw? What can you do with it?

  He didn't have the answer, not consciously, but for some reason—some strange, but welcome reason—asking the question lightened him and brought an unexpected chuckle to his throat.

  The trooper next to him looked at him curiously. "What's funny, Lieutenant?" he asked.

  "I was just thinking how weird it is that here I am, still alive."

  It wasn't a true answer, but it had the ring of truth, it could have been true, and it served. The trooper grinned at him. "Yeah. Some of us seem to be wired to duck at the right time. I don't know whether it's our script writer or maybe our props man."

  There were other chuckles around them, and Jerym realized that he was feeling a lot better, extroverted again. He'd tell Lotta what he'd felt, he decided, but he wouldn't ask her help. Tunis! He hadn't even exercised what he knew to do, hadn't turned around and looked at himself yet!

  * * *

  Romlar sat in the dark at his radio. Beneath the jungle roof, the night was black as tar. All he could see were the tiny red power lights of radio and computer.

  He could have pulled his visor down to see, of course, but just now the dark was comforting. The evacuation floaters should be headed back, he thought, those that could, but they were keeping radio silence. Apparently at least one of the Klestronu gunships was still alive, possibly two.

  But of the survival and evacuation status, he knew nothing except for the cadet operation. Three of the "girls" had gotten out of the rec compound and reached the evacuation site, along with seventeen of those who'd made their escape possible by ambushing and engaging the relief column. That made twenty of seventy. There weren't many cadets left—a hundred maybe, and half as many cadre. He was prepared for even heavier casualties among B and C Companies, who'd dropped into the Klestronu field bases.

  As for 2nd Platoon—if any got out alive, that would make it a really special coup. But then, the version of 2nd Platoon that went out tonight held nothing but survivors. The remaining originals had been through more tough missions than perhaps any other platoon in the regiment, while the guys who'd been assigned from H Company . . .

  It was a regiment to be proud of, and he was proud. But at the moment he was depressed. Sure it's unreasonable, he told himself, and sure the T'swa wouldn't feel like this. But it's how I feel.

  He'd talk with Lotta about it after she made her report. Whenever that was. It seemed to him she could handle his mood with two or three questions.

  Just now, thinking of her, he felt horny, which surprised him, and he pulled his thoughts to the operational situation, so far as he knew it. The regiment was still formidable. And the Klestroni had so few gunships left—probably one, maybe two—that even if they got their new surveillance ship up, their responses would be badly limited. He—he and the regiment and the cadets—had hurt them badly. The question was whether they'd hurt them badly enough to drive them back to Klestron.

  67

  Igsat Tarimenloku's back was straight but his morale had slumped. The bridge crew stayed as quiet as possible, moving as little as possible, as if someone in the room was dying. He'd come there from the chapel, where he'd prayed first to Flenyaagor for His guidance. And when, with that guidance, he'd made his decision, he'd asked Flenyaagor for His support with Kargh. Finally he'd prayed to Kargh himself, something he hadn't had the courage to do since his over-bold youth. And it seemed to him that when he'd finished, Flenyaagor had breathed His Divine Breath upon him, as if telling him to be of good faith.

  He had not asked Kargh for mercy. Only for His blessing on what he must now do.

  Back in his command seat, Tarimenloku had called onto the screen a holo of the marine base, magnified to look as if seen from 10,000 feet. It wouldn't look much different now, from 10,000 feet. No heavy weapons had been engaged. It hadn't been devastated. One could easily miss that a disaster, even a calamity, had struck there.

  Would it have been different if he'd had a heavy brigade, with its tanks? He didn't think so.

  Things had seemed so simple when they'd set it up. This was a backward world, seemingly without an army, its population scant and scattered. Control the small capital, learn about them,
milk them of their information about the rest of the sector, and then leave. It was a Kargh-sent opportunity involving no apparent major risk, requiring no great haste. Eight thousand marines had seemed more than enough; the initial 4,000 he'd sent down had seemed ample.

  Even now, nearly 5,500 officers and men were still alive, more than 5,000 fit for duty. But of the 615 marine officers who'd landed, only 283 were alive, only 241 fit for duty! Almost no senior officers were still alive: one colonel and three majors! And Saadhrambacoora of course, but more than his leg had been broken. Almost no one left down there had ever commanded a unit larger than a company, and even at the company and platoon levels, the officer shortage was severe.

  You could not operate a brigade without qualified officers. To raise company commanders to battalion commands invited worse disasters than they'd already suffered, and who then would command the companies, the platoons? Peasants lacked the self-discipline, nor would they accept other peasants as their officers. It took more than insignia.

  Even the remaining officers had lost authority. He knew it without being there, had heard it in Saadhrambacoora's voice. What a diabolical thing to have spared the man, thought Tarimenloku, deliberately leaving him alive among the dead, like the drunken Thilraxakootha on the Eve of the Battle of Klarwath. Even peasants would see the parallel; the man could never command effectively again.

  Tarimenloku shook his head. How could they know us so well?

  The commodore didn't ask himself another question: how the enemy might have done what he'd done. It never occurred to him; defeat gripped him too tightly. In a voice as hard as ever but somehow flavored with apathy, he gave the order he'd decided upon in prayer: He ordered Saadhrambacoora to prepare his marines for withdrawal. It was time to return to Klestron.

  * * *

  When Lotta emerged from her trance, she did not at once get up. A unit of her attention was stuck on one of Tarimenloku's thoughts: How could they know us so well?

  In a meld she knew the other's conscious thoughts, and felt—got the taste of, the sense of—the layer of active unconsciousness just beneath them. But she didn't go deeper. Couldn't, as far as she knew. So she'd never gotten the insights, personal and cultural, that Artus seemed to have, the insights implied in the actions he'd ordered.

  How had he known?

  She was reasonably sure that he couldn't have voiced those insights, but at some level he knew. The wisdom was there.

  She thought she'd seen what Artus was, and almost certainly who he'd been—one of the whos—even though he hadn't recognized it himself. And Wellem had agreed with her appraisal. But that was no explanation for what Artus had done here, or it didn't seem to be. There was something deeper, but she was not going to poke around hunting for it. And she doubted that Wellem would either, when they got back to Iryala. It could throw Artus into something not even Wellem was prepared to handle.

  She got to her feet. Time to report what the commodore had ordered.

  * * *

  Again Romlar sat in the inky dark alone. Lotta had reported to him, and when she'd left, he'd wanted to go with her, to spend what was left of the night with her, if she'd have him.

  Artus, he'd told himself instead, don't be a jerk. You want to use her to help you hide.

  So. Hide from what? Tonight he'd sent 411 personnel on what amounted to suicide missions. Ninety-two had come back; only 92, though that was more than he'd thought there might be. But deaths weren't what was bothering him. Tonight had broken the Klestroni, and if lives were the issue, tonight may well have ended the killing here. Tonight had saved lives, both Iryalan and Klestronu.

  He grunted. It was true. And recognizing it hadn't helped at all. So something else was the problem.

  Who'd died? Guys he'd known and guys he hadn't. On his side almost all of them warriors. All but some of the floater crews; the replacement crews hadn't been warriors. But they'd had the Ostrak Procedures, and not one of them had tried to weasel out of a mission. They were at Work, at Service. They couldn't truly be warriors but they could be soldiers, and they'd been good ones, laying their lives on the line and being effective.

  Which shows me something, he told himself. The operational difference between warriors and soldiers isn't necessarily courage or will. Soldiers, some of them, a lot of them, have all the courage and will you could want. The operational difference is talent—the kit that comes with being born a warrior, especially a cleaned-up warrior: the inherent attitudes, the inherent responses, the luck. And in most cases the reflexes and strength.

  * * *

  Lotta reached her tent and ducked inside. Artus had had a cloud hanging around him, but it felt like something he wasn't ready to have handled. If I went to sleep and he went to sleep, we could probably cook up some dreams to ease it, she told herself, maybe lay it to rest awhile, but the big oaf won't go to bed.

  She skinned out of her clothes and lay down on top of her sleeping bag. Maybe he wasn't going to sleep, she told herself, but she was.

  But when she closed her eyes, it seemed to her that she was feeling what he was. Opening them, she sat up irritatedly, not used to being affected by things like that. Then, without a conscious decision, she reached. [Artus!]

  [Yes?]

  To that she had no answer, didn't know why she'd reached. All she could think of was that a meld might help, and she had no reason to suppose it actually would. She hadn't been melding with him on Backbreak. He might be in conference, or on the radio, and going in person to headquarters was less intrusive than touching his mind.

  [The meld sounds good,] he thought to her. [Let's try it.]

  For a minute they sat, she in her tent, he in a canvas folding chair in front of his computer, while nothing happened. Then, [why don't I come over there?] he asked.

  She didn't have an answer to that either, in words, but felt her body quicken. She was with him every step of the way, electric, and three minutes later he was outside her tent flaps, taking off his boots. Belatedly it occurred to her that she was naked, and somehow, for a moment, the realization alarmed her.

  She heard as well as felt his chuckle. [I suspect,] he thought to her, [that for a couple of virgins, we won't do too badly.]

  * * *

  Lotta was breathing quietly, asleep; Romlar had been right. Just now he lay beside her with his hands behind his head, not sleepy a bit, feeling very good indeed. He had a semi-erection again but felt no need to do anything about it. Somewhere up above, in the top of the forest roof, he heard a bird chirp. Seconds later it was answered.

  They must be seeing dawnlight, he thought. Better get out of here before people start moving around.

  Carefully he felt about him, found his shorts, pulled them on, his undershirt, shirt, field pants. He was glad he'd issued the women a four-panel tent; it made dressing a lot easier. Then, sitting on the ground in front of it, he put on his boots. Already a little dawnlight was penetrating the leafy roof, so that the darkness beneath was no longer absolute. The bird calls had changed from tentative chirps to phrases, snatches of songs. In a minute or two they'll be a chorus, he told himself, and got to his feet.

  And today— Maybe today we'll organize an evacuation of our own. We'll see.

  68

  It was an overdue rain, a badly needed rain, and it had been coming down hard for half an hour. At first almost none of it had penetrated the forest roof; now drip from the leaves pattered arhythmically, abundantly on Lotta's tent. But where her attention lay, it would never rain. She was with Commodore Tarimenloku in his office adjacent to the bridge of HRS Blessed Flenyaagor. It was a facility he didn't use a lot, but just now he wanted privacy on duty.

  The marines were back aboard the troopship, and in stasis except for a few who needed medical treatment first.

  The commodore sat watching his comm screen. He'd just ordered his chief intelligence officer to prepare the prisoners from Lonyer City for their return to the planet. The man's acknowledgement lagged for three or four seconds.r />
  "Yes sir," he said at last. "Does that include the female soldier who was captured?"

  "The prisoners from Lonyer City," the commodore repeated testily, then with a held breath calmed his temper. "The female soldier we will retain. She is a prisoner of war, and the war is not over."

  "Yes sir." The CIO's expression was troubled as he said it.

  The commodore noticed, and touched the record key. In the empire, even in this time of infrequent wars, the repatriation of prisoners was a subject stressed at the academy. A sensitive subject wrapped in imprecise legalities, with significances cultural and religious as well as political and military. And while nothing he might do now was likely to save his life and honor, he would not abandon propriety or integrity. "Commander," he said, "would you care to speak for the record as the Conscience of the Prophet?"

  "If you please, sir."

  "A moment then. I will have the chaplain witness." He tapped other keys. After several seconds his screen split, a middle-aged face and shaven head sharing it now with the chief intelligence officer. Briefly the commodore explained the situation to the chaplain, then returned his attention to the lieutenant commander.

  "So. As the Conscience of the Prophet, speak."

  The younger man's face was even more serious than usual. "I have spoken with the chief medical officer about the female prisoner. She remains deeply amnesic. So profoundly so that he feels she will never recover her past while she is with us. Therefore . . ."

  "I am aware of the chief medical officer's opinion," Tarimenloku interrupted, then wished he hadn't. "Continue."

  "Yes sir. Assuming the chief medical officer's opinion is correct, and it is the most informed opinion available to us, she will never be of value as an intelligence source. He also thinks that she probably would recover, in time, if she were back among her people."