The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  Year 20,834—Merlan Ostrak, age seven, becomes the first Iryalan child to live and train on Tyss under T'sel masters. He is joined within three years by two more Iryalan children. Being reared in the T'sel overrides the Sacrament.

  Year 20,851—First covert T'sel academy founded on Iryala, on the Ostrak country estate. It appears to be an ordinary private academy.

  Year 20,878—The so-called "Movement" is established by alumni of the Ostrak academy. A second academy is opened, the beginning of an expansion.

  Year 20,913—Prince Jerym enrolls at the Green Plains Academy.

  Year 20,949—Prince Jerym is crowned King of Iryala and Administrator General of the Confederation of Worlds, as Consar II. From that point, all Iryalan princes are covertly trained in the T'sel.

  Year 21,439—Covert disarming of the Sacrament is begun on Iryala to break the Confederation free from the long technological stagnation.

  Year 21,460—The Kettle War starts. [See The Regiment.]

  Year 21,462—The Kettle War ends. The role played by nonstandard T'swa metallurgists and mercenary regiments is used by The Movement to crack Standard Technology. [See The Regiment.]

  Year 21,487—Training of selected Iryalan children as warriors begins with the "cadets."

  Year 21,493—An experimental regiment of adolescent Iryalans, "intentive warriors," begins training under T'swa veterans.

  Year 21,494—A teleport is successfully tested with human subjects. The personal attributes for survival of teleportation are defined.

  The Karghanik exploration flotilla lands marines on the Confederation Trade World Terfreya (Karnovir 02), and captures Lonyer City, its capital. The marines are soon engaged in jungle warfare by the twelve-year-old cadets in training there.

  Their black T'swa cadre dub the Iryalan regiment-in-training "the White T'swa," following its highly successful graduation maneuvers.

  The white regiment is teleported to Terfreya, and in company with the preadolescent cadets, drives the Klestronu marines off of Terfreya.

  Year 21,498—The Klestronu flotilla arrives back in the Karghanik Empire and reports on the habitable world it found, part of a sector with many habitable worlds. The evidence is that the Confederation fleet is smaller and technologically inferior to that of the empire.

  Notes

  1 In this book, customary units of measurement, as well as the twenty-four-hour clock, are used for convenience in visualization. However, Confederation calendar units are used here instead of months.

  2 In the Confederation Sector, the year is divided into ten parts, known as deks. Each world has its own calendar based on its orbital period. The Standard Year and Standard Deks, used in interplanetary records, commerce, and Confederation government, are the year and deks of the principal planet, Iryala.

  3 Of course, there were the survivors—refugees, our ancestors—who fled early in the rebellion in a fleet of eight large merchant ships, and came to the sector we live in now. But they are not the subject of this work. [Translator]

  4 SUMBAA is our Iryalan acronym for Sentient, Universal, Multiterminal Bank, Analyzer, and Advisor—our translation of their name for it. They have their own acronym. We do not know very much about SUMBAA. It was designed to program itself, with the potential for self-expansion, and has grown beyond, perhaps far beyond, the understanding of the people who designed it. And their ability was considerably above that of the empire's present-day computer scientists, let alone our own. [Translator]

  5 It seems probable that any one of its fleet combat teams—three vessels working together—could defeat the entire Confederation fleet as now constituted. [Translator]

  6 Their weapons too seem generally superior to our own, and apparently their naval armament is far superior. We can expect it to take two to three generations before we will have caught up in the technology of space warfare. If we decide to. First our culture will need to adjust sufficiently to the changes we are leading it through. [Translator]

  7 Klestronu adj. Of, pertaining to, or derived from Klestron or its inhabitants.

  8 Klestroni noun, plural; singular Klestronit. Persons native to or inhabiting Klestron.

  9 Even at the time of this story, the Sacrament constrained them, though in practice it had become an empty ritual. Roughly thirty percent of the people on Iryala, an aging thirty percent, had received the ungelded Sacrament, and in the Confederation sector overall, the percentage was considerably higher. Thus many things could not be said or done openly. Science and research could not be publicly discussed except in the most carefully oblique way. For example, what might more accurately have been called the Bureau of Research and Development was named simply the Office of Special Projects.

  To have done otherwise would have been to trigger widespread psychosis and disorder.

  10 Made not with intent to kill or maim, but "just to see what would happen." Twelve trainees plus Lieutenant Ghaz and Corporal Toka-Ghit were treated in the infirmary; three trainees were flown to the army hospital at Granite River. All in all a remarkable demonstration of the value of T'swa training.

  11 Hyperspace is not actually a space. It is a field enclosing a ship, generated by the ship's hyperspace generator and fully occupied by the ship. In this limited sense, hyperspace is analogous to the warp field enwrapping a ship at sublight speeds, with the additional similarity that in either case the ship has no momentum as gauged against external fields. However, a ship riding its warp field travels through space, while a ship in hyperspace is in a sort of limbo: It can be said to be nowhere. Its field can be said to move, taking the ship with it, but in a sense they aren't moving through anything.

  Yet in an equally valid sense it is moving, with a movement that can be quantified and perhaps actually measured—a matter of dispute—through a sort of quasi-topological "reverse side" of real-space. Thus different ships separately "in hyperspace" (more properly in separate hyperspaces) can communicate with each other by simple radio, with the transmission times a complex function of their "hyperspace positions" relative to each other.

  Suffice it to be aware that a ship in hyperspace can stop abruptly or turn without inertial effects, though gauged within the specific hyperspace field, inertia is normal.

  12 Wisdom, as defined by T'sel masters, is appropriate action, and knowledge of appropriate action.

  13 So-called. The new "mapbook" is a computerized holographic atlas 12 X 10 X 1 inches—about the size of the standard army field mapbook. Based on high elevation, computer-enhanced holography, it gives a realistic display of the topography and, at the largest scales, of tree heights. The computer adds contour lines. The broadest vegetation categories are differentiated by color. At larger scales, the classification becomes progressively more detailed, the finer types being outlined and defined by symbols.

  14 In the empire, the surnames of nobles have five syllables, with the stress on the first and fourth. Here dh is used to represent the sound of th in the; and c the ch sound in chew. Thus "SAADH-rahm-bah-CHOO-rah."

  15 In the Confederation, the calendar year for every inhabited planet begins with the southern hemisphere winter solstice. The southern hemisphere was chosen as the base because Landfall, the original settlement in the Confederation, is in Iryala's southern hemisphere.

  THE REGIMENT'S WAR

  This one is for GAIL

  Acknowledgements

  I'd like to thank David Palter, Bill Bailie, and as always, Gail and Judy for reading and commenting on a preliminary draft of this manuscript.

  I also want to thank Jack Jones, my black-belt son and eclectic martial artist, for reading the sections on hand-to-hand fighting.

  Prologue

  The audience room was richly fitted, its hangings dark, its light subdued. Centered in it, straight-backed before the throne, Ambassador Vilmur Klens didn't notice the buzz and click of cameras. His attention was totally on the king, who stood on the dais, reading the accusations in a loud, reedy voice. Klens had heard them before; they'd
been read to him by a royal envoy on the day they'd been published. He'd then read and digested them himself before wiring them home. Now, a week later, he was hearing them from Engwar II Tarsteng himself.

  Engwar's tone was merely petulant, but the malice in his glance turned Klens numb. When he'd finished reading the charges, he went on to read the appended ultimatum. An impossible ultimatum because the charges all were false: cynical and ruthless, lacking even a pretense of truth. Smolen had been given twenty-one days to deliver to Komarsi justice "those persons guilty of the outrages." Fifteen days now.

  Engwar Tarsteng completed his reading, then rolled the parchment and slapped it against his plump palm, once, twice, a third time. If Engwar's reading had been loud and reedy, his next words were almost purred. "I was generous," he said, "in giving your government twenty-one days. I should have realized that civilized deportment could not be expected from it. My sources assure me that it has made no slightest effort to comply. Instead you have mobilized your reserves, preparing to attack Komars."

  Preparing to attack Komars! Did the vole attack the stoat? Vilmur Klens knew now what this meeting, this needless recitation was about, had to be about. Still emotionally numb, he felt the muscles of his chest and arms begin to twitch and tremble, and tried to control them.

  The king put away his scowl. A smile curved his full lips, his remarkable cupid-bow mouth; he'd seen the trembling despite Klens's fashionably loose jacket. "Therefore," he went on, "I herewith declare that a state of war now exists between my country and yours, a war which shall not end until your evil, upstart republic has been prostrated, and its people properly punished!"

  Engwar seemed to swell then. Two of his guards had stepped up beside Vilmur Klens. Now they grasped his arms roughly. Klens did not resist as they manacled him. The king continued, his voice rising further:

  "You, as the representative of a vicious government, share its responsibility for this war, and for its costs-to-be in blood and treasure. Therefore I herewith arrest you in the name of the Crown of Komars, and of civilized states throughout the planet." For the first time, the Smoleni ambassador became aware of the busy cameras. Engwar shifted his attention to the officer who'd moved up beside one of the guards. "Lieutenant, I want this—criminal locked securely in the block. You know the cell."

  He turned on his heel then, but as he left, he spoke to his lord chancellor, loudly enough for the room to hear: "Sixday would be nice for a public beheading, wouldn't you say?"

  Part One

  THE ASSIGNMENT

  1

  Colonel Artus Romlar lay listening behind a tree. There were many sounds. Just now, none seemed meaningful.

  Insects buzzed and clicked and crawled. Sweat trickled. His shirt stuck to his back. He ignored them all. It was early spring in Oven's northern hemisphere, and the late morning temperature had risen well above a hundred. At least there was forest and shade, here in the Jubat Hills.

  And the T'swa would be along soon. If he was wrong about that, he'd made a serious error.

  Below him was a log landing on the Jubat Hills Railroad, a long strip of open ground used periodically for piling logs. The ground sloped downward at thirty to forty percent almost to the tracks, which here had been built along the bottom of a wide draw. Farther on, the draw became a steep-walled ravine; if the T'swa were going to detrain short of Tiiku Lod-Sei, this was the last good site.

  The trick was to fool them into thinking he was somewhere else, hours away. Romlar considered he'd done that. The risk in not being at Junction 4 Village made it convincing. It was also the principal down side of his decision.

  Regimental commanders don't customarily lead their troops into firefights, but this fight would be pivotal, perhaps decisive. The situation had become increasingly critical, the overall odds poor. He'd long since consolidated the men he had left into two battalions. If he lost in this week's set of engagements, his regiment would be—not finished, perhaps, but so reduced as to lose much of its effectiveness. And the Condaros, the people who'd hired it, would be beaten beyond hope. On the other hand, winning here decisively could carry them a while longer, and give them some sort of chance.

  Of course, the T'swa might not come. In that case, he'd left 2nd Battalion, along with his Condaro allies, in a precarious position to little avail. Though he still might be able to hit the Booly positions by surprise, and even the odds a bit. That was another reason he was leading 1st Battalion personally: Its commander, Coyn Carrmak, was the best officer he had, but to Romlar's thinking, he had to be present at this action himself, to know the result promptly, and as fully as possible.

  The T'swa would come though, reportedly a fresh regiment, full strength. All he had to do—all he had to do!—was beat it soundly, cut it up badly with relatively few casualties of his own.

  Meanwhile the Booly 2nd Division was sure to hit Junction 4 and its village today, with its two regiments of Condaro defenders and his own 2nd Battalion. Might have hit them already. If he were there with 1st Battalion . . . But if the T'swa were allowed to intervene, there was no chance at all of pulling the fat from the fire.

  There were many ways to lose this war. There might or might not be a way to win it.

  Romlar didn't run all this through his mind now. It was there, had entered into his decisions, and that was enough. He had committed. Now he lay quietly relaxed, waiting and watching, alert without effort. He'd been through this before. It seemed his reason for being.

  He heard the locomotive now, a laboring steam engine chuffing up the long grade. Assuming he'd judged right, and he felt ninety percent sure he had, the train would slow and stop just here below him, and the T'swa would start getting out of the open-sided wooden cars. He'd open fire when about half were still on the cars and half on the ground. If the engineer started the train moving again, he'd be abandoning the men already off, and besides, the terrain became difficult along the tracks ahead, even for T'swa.

  No, they'd detrain here, then try to move back under fire, and that would spring the rest of his trap. They might well see it coming, but there'd be little they could do about it except fight furiously. Which in the case of the T'swa also meant intelligently and joyously. To them, too, fighting was fulfillment, the spice of life.

  He could feel his troopers waiting. There was, of course, the danger that the T'swa would feel them too. But he felt them knowing they were there. They were relaxed, too imbued with the T'sel to be anxious. Thus the T'swa were unlikely to sense them. Except for the T'swa, there wasn't another fighting force in Confederation Space that could lie in wait like this and not be tense, not reek psychically. And except for the T'swa, he knew of no military force other than his that might detect that sort of thing.

  The locomotive poked into sight, moving slowly, resinous woodsmoke issuing from the spark arrester on its stack. It wouldn't have to brake; the slope and the heavy gravity of Oven would stop it. With their typical energy and athleticism, T'swa began to pile out before the cars had totally stopped. Romlar leveled his bolt-action rifle and squeezed the trigger, and the ridge side to both his left and right erupted with fire—rifles, grenade launchers, and light machine guns all firing blanks.

  Referees with the T'swa began to move up and down the line, shouting and pointing, and men "died"—lay down, rolled over. Others were returning fire, and the referees with Romlar's 1st Battalion went into action too. But Romlar's men had the advantages of position and cover. Some of the T'swa took cover behind the cars' steel trucks and chassis, while others backed down the slope toward the limited cover of the trees—backing toward the other jaw—two machine gun platoons.

  The T'swa weren't really surprised to receive a new surge of fire from behind. The exchange continued noisy and intense; the referees continued busy. After a few minutes more their whistles blew, ending the action. Most of the "surviving" T'swa were free of the trap now, having overrun the machine guns, and the real harvest was finished. The referees needed to confer, to sort out the confusi
on and define the casualties on both sides. Meanwhile both troopers and T'swa stopped where they were and waited.

  While the referees conferred, Romlar washed down a "sweat capsule" with a swallow of warm water, then got on the radio to Brossling, who'd kept comm silence till then because their frequency might be monitored. The Boolies had hit them, Brossling said, but the assault hadn't been as bad as expected. The referees there had agreed that 2nd Battalion and the Condaro had driven them off with fairly heavy Booly casualties and only modest casualties of their own. Modest because they were dug in, and because they hadn't let themselves be overrun.

  Romlar's own casualties, the referees announced, had been relatively modest too, considering it was T'swa they'd ambushed, T'swa in their prefinal year of training, most of them seventeen years old. When the whistles blew again, the surviving T'swa would regroup and do whatever their commander decided. Romlar would move his men back to the abandoned logging camp at Junction 4, fifteen miles away. A camp that, in the never-never land of the training exercise, served as the nucleus of the mocked-up Condaro village at Junction 4, whose rough wagon road gave logistical access to the principal pass through this part of the Jubat Hills. The Condaros, like the Boolies, were mostly imaginary of course, represented by T'swa veterans, survivors of retired regiments, pretending to be non-T'swa. Veterans each of whom, for the purpose of the exercise, represented a Condaro or Booly platoon.

  It was all as real as it could reasonably be made, but given the genuine and bloody fighting his regiment had been through on Terfreya, five years earlier, the difference had always been conspicuous to Romlar. Nonetheless, the regiment had learned a great deal in those five additional training years, learned much more than simply strategy, tactics, and fighting techniques.

  Romlar had lost thirty-two percent of his command on Terfreya—real deaths by violence, not pretended deaths by referees' decisions—and like the T'swa, the "White T'swa" did not replace their casualties. But allowing for that short-handedness, he had no doubt that this regiment, under his leadership, was as good as any regiment in Confederation Space, whether at War Level One, Two, or Three. Which were all the levels the Confederation condoned.