The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  19

  Rumaros was the farthest north of any sizeable town in Smolen, and the Rumar River was navigable there for seagoing ships. Thus the commander of Komarsi forces in Smolen, General Undsvin Tarsteng, had chosen it for his headquarters.

  More specifically, he'd chosen its district courthouse for his headquarters, and the district administrator's office as his own. Its furnishings had been plain before the conquest, and remained so. Unlike his cousin Engwar, this soldier had no compulsion for the trappings and ornaments of power. For him, it was enough to have an army.

  "Gentlemen," he was saying to his staff, "it is time to cut our losses. Given the recent aggressiveness of Smoleni forces, or more specifically the mercenary force they've employed, our advanced brigade bases are a needless and embarrassing expense to us. They were established to deny to the Smoleni the food-growing potentials of their districts. They've accomplished that; the summer is now too far advanced for anyone to plant and grow crops there.

  "Accordingly, I am going to withdraw all military forces south of the Eel River-Strawstack line. We will burn the villages as we leave them. It is not in our interest that the Smoleni reoccupy them, and we will not need them again. By next year at this time there will be no Smoleni government, no Smoleni army, and no war.

  "This withdrawal will begin no later than a week from Twoday, and will be carried out in no more than three stages. Colonel Daggit will coordinate the planning, and will report to me each . . ."

  He stopped at the sound of muffled gunfire within the building, and his very first reaction was not alarm but anger: This was the last straw! Those drunken fools had gone too far this time; he'd send them all to the stockade! Alarm followed though, for that first gunfire was answered at once by shouts and more shooting. There was an outburst of it from the end of the corridor outside the chamber, an intense flurry of it somewhere on the ground floor, terminated by a grenade. And then, more from nearby in the headquarters billeting district. All this in less than five seconds. Undsvin drew the large pistol holstered at his side and moved toward the door despite the gunshots in the corridor. He hadn't yet reached it when a massive explosion shook the building, followed almost instantly by two others. Behind him a section of wall fell, and the floor collapsed beneath his feet. . . .

  * * *

  Even in the larger towns of the south, enough people had left ahead of the invaders that there were numerous empty houses. In one of them were six men in Komarsi uniform shirts. They were all more or less large and physically powerful. None of them wore trousers or shorts, for they were in the process of raping twin girls of perhaps fifteen years. By then the girls were in shock, and the soldiers resorted to occasional knife jabs to elicit movement from them.

  In the distance they heard gunfire, but ignored it, were scarcely aware of it. They were off duty, drinking, and occupied. Then there was a large multiple explosion, and they paused. One of them went to his trousers and picked them up. "That's from over 'round headquarters," he said, and began to pull them on. "Get yer pants on and let's go." All but one moved to obey; he was building to a climax. The man who'd given the order strode to him, one hand still holding up his pants, and kicked the man powerfully in the buttocks, dislodging him. "Now!" he bellowed.

  Drunk or not, in half a minute they were ready to leave. With a thumb, the leader gestured at the girls still lying on the bare floor. "Kill 'em," he said. "If they get home, they may tell what we look like, and it could get to the general."

  One man laughed and moved toward them. He didn't need to draw his knife. His boots would do.

  20

  It was twilight. In a working-class section of Linnasteth, the capital of Komars, two drifters carrying rucksacks turned into a weedy yard and walked up a broken sidewalk to a house. One of them knocked. A large middle-aged woman opened. "What do you want?" she asked.

  "We been told this's a place that'll rent a flop to an old soldier."

  She cocked an eye. "You ayn't soldiers, and you ayn't old. Whadya got for me?"

  "Good news and bad."

  The formula completed, she stepped back. "Come in," she said, and when they had, she closed the door behind them. "We've been worried about you. Day after tomorrow's the day, and the others have checked in." Her speech had lost the twang of the shanty towns outside the city. An old man had entered the room from a hall, and she turned to him. "Mogi, fix something to eat for them." She looked the two up and down. "Damn! They picked you people for strong! I've got uniforms for you, but they're not going to fit worth a damn. I'll have to do some altering tonight." She turned, gesturing. "Come on. I want you to clean up while Mogi's heating something in the kitchen. Then I'll show you what we've got."

  She shook her head. "You people have really stretched our resources. But at least for you two we don't need to make passes with photographs."

  21

  The main gate into the walled government district accommodated two wide lanes of traffic, with a sidewalk on either side. The midmorning traffic was considerable, and the gate guards busy. The workman with a tool chest stopped for one of them.

  "Your pass."

  The man put down his chest, took out a wallet, and displayed the pass in it. The guard waved him through without looking in the chest. The man had been told it would be that way, but his chest had a tray in the top, with tools, just in case. He picked it up and went through, glancing at his watch as he walked. The better part of an hour yet. Inside, someone hailed him, and he recognized his partner. They met and shook hands, as if they hadn't seen each other for some time.

  "Security is as poor as Jenni said it would be," the first commented quietly.

  "I'll take all the breaks they'll give me," the other answered. "Barrek and Norri have already gone ahead."

  They moved on then, noting the names on the buildings, following the route they'd memorized on a map nearly four hundred miles away.

  * * *

  A van bearing the name and logo of a well-known delivery firm stopped in the horseshoe drive that curved to the front entrance of the War Ministry. Two men in coveralls got out, went to the back, and slid out a sizeable chest with carrying handles jutting out at both ends. Two uniformed armed guards followed the chest out. The two who took it were strong-looking, but even so, it was obviously heavy. The van then pulled out of the drive and stopped at the curb across the street.

  They carried the chest laboriously up the steps, then set it down as one of the entrance guards came over to them. He barely glanced at the courier guards; his attention was on the men with the chest. "Whadya got there?" he asked.

  "Reports from archives. For the adjutant general's office."

  The entrance guard looked at it for several long seconds, as if x-raying it with his eyes, then nodded. "All right, go on in. They'll tell you in reception where his office is."

  The two picked up the chest and lugged it inside. The armed guards followed them without challenge. If the door guard had looked inside it, all he'd have seen was report binders held shut with rubber bands. Unless, of course, he'd dug beneath them.

  * * *

  The morning was already hot. A fan on the windowsill drew in more humid air, mixing and stirring. Colonel Torey Eltrimor wished he hadn't been given a rear office. At the War Ministry, rear was south, and hot. Although it could have been worse, for this was the second floor. The top floor, the fifth, became unbearable on days like this.

  Eltrimor made most of the Commissary Department's meat purchases. He bought livestock on the hoof, and was known for driving hard bargains. He liked Fingas Marnsson Kelromak, as much as he allowed himself to like anyone he did business with, but he would not bend when it came to prices.

  "I don't doubt your word," Eltrimor was saying, "but the department's overbought on grade B just now. It's only used in officers' mess, you understand. I can pay what you asked for for one car of it, but everything else I'll have to buy as C, regardless of the actual grade."

  Fingas nodded. It was che
aper to market to the War Ministry—it was the easy way, so to speak—but with a modest effort, he could sell all the grade B he wanted to commercial buyers, for B prices. He raised very few cattle that graded C or lower—culled dairy cows, mainly, and an occasional sausage bull.

  "Fine. One car of B then, and I'll ship the rest to Brisslo. Will someone come out? Or can your man check them on arrival?"

  "In your case, arrival will be fine. You've never sent me anything yet that didn't meet . . ."

  He stopped in mid-sentence. From some other part of the building came the sound of shooting, muffled by distance and walls. "What is it?" asked Fingas, alarmed.

  "Damned if I know. Gunfire, but . . ." A muffled boom followed, spelling "grenade" to the colonel. "Fingas," he said, heading for the door, "we'd better get out of here!"

  Others were entering the hall as they did, but Eltrimor's office was nearest the back stairs. On the level, Fingas could move quickly when he had to, but on the stairs his bad leg slowed him. Eltrimor reached the first floor well ahead of him. Others passed him, jostling him as they hurried down. Sporadic shots continued, three- or four-round bursts from an automatic weapon, and he could hear shouting.

  Fingas had expected to find the first floor corridor full of people, but there were relatively few. Of course, he thought. There's a side exit. The rear door was something of a bottleneck, but the press of bodies was not severe. He was carried out the door with the flow, then lost his footing on the outside steps. As he fell, there was gunfire ahead of him—a submachine gun, and screams. People in front of him fell. Someone stomped hard on his chest, the pain making him gasp; someone else trod on his hand. Someone else fell on him then, and someone else. Behind him, inside the ministry, a great explosion roared, jarring the massive stone building.

  In front of him the shooting continued.

  * * *

  The fuses were short. It wouldn't do to have them noticed. And radio detonators that would have allowed blowing the charges from a distance weren't permitted in a Level 3 War.

  The Linnos Ordnance Depot was temporary, had been set up for this particular war. And instead of storing explosives in massive bunkers, as in permanent depots, the Komarsi War Ministry had elected to rely on distance to protect the surroundings from possible accident. It saved the cost of construction, and made access far easier and quicker. They'd set it up in a poor, sandy, grazing area, four miles downstream from Linnasteth. For simplicity in handling and transshipping, materials were segregated by class. High explosives, tons of them, were held in the southeast quadrant.

  Of course the area was well secured. A heavy chain link fence surrounded it, eight feet high and topped with barbed wire. Outside lay a double barrier of accordion wire, while beyond the accordion wire was sandy pasture, still picked over by leggy cattle, and providing no cover. Inside the fence, armed sentries walked their posts, and guards watched the surroundings from corner towers.

  Loading of munitions was done by dock crews, who entered with the trucks. Invariably they brought their mid-shift lunches, day or night, and no one ever thought of checking their boxes or pails to see what sort of sandwiches they held.

  Casual labor was provided by drafts of new recruits, looking awkward in unfamiliar fatigue uniforms. That was how Chelli Morss got in.

  The depot mission was the iffiest and most challenging part of Operation Scorpion. It involved the most uncertain preliminary steps, required the most on-site decisions and innovations. For example, Chelli couldn't know in what part of the HE quadrant the charges had been set.

  He'd hardly arrived when he'd been given a bucket of paint and a brush, and detailed with several others to paint a shed. A corporal had been with them, and Chelli'd had no chance to slip away. So he'd painted fast, if somewhat sloppily, to finish the job as soon as possible. They'd just finished washing out their brushes when he heard a distant boom. The War Ministry; he knew it by the sound, and the timing was right. It had been scheduled first.

  No one else seemed to notice. They'd started handing out sickles to cut grass with, inside the fence and between the piles. Chelli had seen his opportunity and crowded in to get one. They'd hardly started when they heard a much greater explosion, a great thunderous roar that he knew was at the harbor facilities some three miles away. He'd felt it through the ground! Surely someone in command would think of the depot now, and take quick action to increase security.

  As soon as he dared, he separated himself from the others, slipping into one of the traffic aisles between piles of boxes. Once alone, he began to scout the piles, chopping at grass now and then in case some noncom looked down an aisle and saw him. Actually he was looking for the red crayon streaks that should mark the fuse locations. Any one charge would do. He saw a red streak on the end of a box, went to it and looked around for the fuse. There! He reached into a pocket and found the small lighter buried beneath his handkerchief.

  "Hey, you!"

  He turned. "Yessir?"

  A sergeant was striding down the aisle toward him, with another man. The sergeant wore a holster at his hip; the other carried a rifle.

  "Get your ass back to the trucks," the sergeant called. "Now!"

  "Just a minute, boss. I dropped something." He bent, and lit the fuse.

  "Yomal damn you Amber-damned recruits!" The sergeant came up to him and punched him. "Don't you 'just a minute' me, you son of a bitch! When I say jump, you better damned well jump! Now let's go!"

  "Sergeant," said the private with the rifle. He was staring at the fuse. "What's that? Looks like a . . ."

  Chelly hit the sergeant in the throat with a spear-hand, felt the trachea crush and saw the eyes glaze. Before the man could fall, he'd pulled the sergeant's pistol from its holster, thumbing the hammer back as he drew it. The rifleman was good. Quick. He swung his rifle around and pulled the trigger at the same moment Chelli pulled his own.

  The difference was that the rifle had a cartridge in the chamber and the pistol didn't. The shock of the bullet knocked Chelli down, then the man dropped his rifle and went for the fuse. Even as Chelli hit the ground, lung-shot, he jacked a cartridge into the chamber, rolled onto his side and pulled the trigger again. The .37 caliber slug took the soldier behind the ear, killing him instantly.

  Chelli raised up enough to shoot the sergeant too, just in case, then fell back.

  There were shouts now. Men drawn by the shooting were running up the aisle from the other direction. The trooper grinned; they'd never make it. It was a short fuse.

  22

  The Royal Council sat around a polished table of some dark wood, the king at one end. The table was raised there, stepped up to accommodate his throne, which was on a small dais.

  "Your Majesty," the Foreign Minister was saying, "it is not true that foreign confidence in us has been shaken. They were inevitably surprised by the recent Smoleni efforts, even impressed by them, especially since the widespread theater distribution of certain cubes. But I know of no foreign government which imagines that it was other than the effort of a dying state."

  Engwar looked past the man, lips pinched, still unhappy. The Foreign Minister went on. "What is true is that there have been from the start—from before the start—certain factions in those countries that wish us ill. But even these do not imagine that the Smoleni might win. They'd simply like to see the war go on, see the Smoleni persist as long as possible and fight as long as possible, embarrassing us and costing us lives and money. It is these who make much of the recent Smoleni successes, small though they are. They—"

  Engwar interrupted. "They were intolerable! Insolent! I'll see they pay for them, a hundredfold."

  "I have no doubt of it, Your Majesty."

  The king glared at him for a moment, then subsided. "You were saying."

  "Yes, Your Majesty. These factions are agitating their governments to provide aid to the Smoleni, and of course most of those governments must at least pretend to listen. But I predict that nothing will come of it. First of al
l, of course, you have the largest navy on the planet, both in tonnage and firepower. People fear you, Your Majesty. And secondly, we isolated Smolen when we captured her coastline. Supplying her—"

  Again Engwar interrupted angrily. "Someone supplied her with those mercenaries!'

  "True, Your Majesty. But it is generally agreed that they are from offworld, that they were landed from a spaceship. No one is going to supply Smolen with food and munitions by spaceship. First, there is no precedent for it in practice or in law. And secondly, the cost would be prohibitive."

  With that, the Foreign Minister stood silent. Engwar glowered. "Is that your entire report then?"

  The man inclined his head. "It is, Your Majesty."

  The king looked at the minister next in line. "And you, Dorskell, what have you to—"

  He bit the words off in mid-sentence, for the Lord Chancellor had entered the room to stand quietly by the door. Such an intrusion must signify something important. "What is it, Gorman?" Engwar said testily.

  "Your Majesty, word has just come from Rumaros that enemy infiltrators have attacked General Undsvin's headquarters there and destroyed it with explosives. The general has been injured, and many officers are dead. The infiltrators have all been killed or captured."

  Engwar II Tarsteng stared at the man. Such an act was incredible! Intolerable! Civilized people did not do such things! They did not attack persons at high levels! "When did this happen?"

  "I'm told it was at 1110 hours."

  "Is my cousin's life endangered by his injury?"

  "They did not say so, Your Majesty."

  "Well go ask them, Dolt! Did you think I wouldn't want to know?"

  "At once, Your Majesty," the man said, and left the room, Engwar glaring after him. The cabinet sat frozen by the news, and by Engwar's anger, for Gorman was his right hand. After a moment, Engwar took his attention from the door and looked at the men around the table.