When Top Myer wouldn’t calm down, Captain Conorado had ordered everybody out of the company command bunker and closed the blastdoor behind them. The company clerks went with the others. Closed blastdoor or not, the Marines waiting outside the bunker could hear the fireworks that went on for some time between the company commander and his top dog.
Then there was a couple minutes of silence, during which the Marines waiting outside fought cases of the fidgets, and began wondering how much blood they’d see spattered on the bunker walls when the blastdoor finally reopened.
None, as it turned out. Top Myer sat at his field desk, not quite glaring, not quite expressionless. Captain Conorado sat serene with a hip perched on a corner of his field desk.
“Palmer,” Myer growled at the company’s chief clerk when Conorado looked at him, “adjust the company roster to show Kerr, Kindrachuk, and Doyle in their new positions.” He turned to Staff Sergeant Hyakowa and growled, “Let me know where you plug the new men in, and any other changes you make in the platoon roster.” He turned to his console and made busy.
Bass and Hyakowa left the company office bunker and returned to the platoon for the memorial service.
“So,” Bass said, looking at the new men for the first time, “I’m Ensign Charlie Bass, and this is my platoon. Who the hell are you?”
The three were PFCs John Three McGinty, Emilio Delagarza, and Lary Smedley. Thirty-fourth FIST was the first assignment for each of them, and third platoon was their first operational unit. Delagarza had gun training and became the assistant gunner in second gun team.
“I don’t know about you other two, though,” Bass said. “We really only have one open slot. PFC Quick has a shattered arm, but we expect him to come back shortly, which means one of you will be an extra man when he does.
“Corporal Doyle!”
Doyle jerked and jumped to his feet. “Y-yessir!”
“You’re good with new men. Which one do you want?”
“S-sir?” Doyle squeaked.
“You heard me, Doyle. Which of these new men do you want in your fire team? Speak up quickly, now. Don’t make me think I was wrong about you.”
“Ah, yessir. I-I’ll take—” he looked at the new men and couldn’t see any difference between them on which to base a choice. He flipped a mental coin. “—I-I’ll take Smedley, sir.”
“Good choice, Doyle. If he’s half the Marine another Smedley was, he’ll make you a better fire team leader.”
“Sir,” Smedley blurted, “Smedley was General Butler’s first name, sir. Smedley’s my last name.”
Bass turned his gaze on Smedley and said slowly, “I’m fully aware of that, PFC. But it’s a famous name, and you had best get used to it.”
Smedley gulped and tried to turn invisible, which was tough to do in garrison utilities. “Aye aye, sir,” he said.
Bass studied him for a brief moment, nodded curtly, and said, “That means Corporal Dean gets McGinty. Be gentle on him, Dean, he’s just a loaner.”
Everybody laughed except Dean, who scowled, and McGinty, who wasn’t sure it was a joke.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
* * *
General Jason Billie sat comfortably in a private room just off his command bunker entertaining his chief of staff, Major General Sorca. “I want to have a little private talk with you, Balca, before we meet with the rest of the staff and the commanders to hash out our battle plan.”
Brigadier General Balca Sorca nodded. “I saw some of them already out there in the operations center when I came in here. Cazombi and Sturgeon are there, gabbing in a corner like a couple of old women. They should be ready in a few minutes.”
Billie snorted derisively. “Let them wait, Balca. They serve at my pleasure now. I’ll go out and call the council to order when I’m damned good and ready.” His face reddened as he remembered the run-in he’d had with Brigadier Sturgeon. Marines attack, they don’t defend—what bullshit! That damned infantry jock was incapable of seeing the Big Picture! He reached into a drawer and withdrew a cigar humidor. “These Clintons are excellent smokes and, if you’ll join me, let’s light up.” Billie offered Sorca his travel humidor. Nodding his appreciation, Sorca took one of the cigars, clipped the end, and licked it lovingly. Billie offered him a light and then lit his own cigar. They sucked in the acrid smoke and exhaled.
“De-lightful!” Sorca sighed. “Haven’t had a good smoke since, um, before all this mess got started.” Immediately the smoke from the two cigars began to fill the small room. That deep inside the complex the ventilation was very poor and, of course, nobody in his right mind would dare expose himself to chance a smoke in the open. From far above them came a series of heavy thumps as if to accentuate the danger of exposure topside.
“Incoming,” Balca muttered. Billie had not been there long enough to tell the difference between enemy artillery and their own. Truth be told, he had never been under enemy artillery fire before.
“These are forty-five-minute cigars, Balca. But let’s go slow on them,” Billie suggested, “keep the smoke down, keep the others waiting, show them their place in this army. Besides, we have a lot to discuss.” He reached back into the drawer and took out a brown bottle. “Old Widow bourbon,” he smiled, holding the bottle out to Sorca, who raised his eyebrows in admiration. “I brought a lot of stuff with me from orbit, Balca. No reason why the commanding general—and his chief of staff!—should live like the troops, is there?” They both laughed as Billie poured two healthy shots into clean glasses. “Here’s sham rocks to my real friends and real rocks to my sham friends,” Billie toasted. “You’re looking a trifle thin, Balca,” Billie observed over the rim of his glass.
“We’ve been on reduced rations for a while, Jason.” The two had been on a first-name basis for years, in private, that is.
“No more! You eat at my table from now on. I brought enough class-A rations in with me to operate my own mess down here and by God, I will not dine like a sodden infantryman! R-H-I-P is my motto and ‘privileges’ is the operative word, Balca. Don’t forget that in your rise to the stars, which I am going to see is rapid. This campaign is the making of both of us.”
The two smoked and sipped in silence. “As my chief of staff, Balca, you will oversee the day-to-day running of this entire army and that means the Marine contingent. Cazombi as my deputy commander will not interfere. I’ll keep him off your back. My plans for him are to store him away so he will no longer be in the way.”
“And if anything were to happen to you, Jason?”
Billie laughed. “Nothing’s going to happen to me! I’m the commanding general! Generals don’t lead troops anymore, despite what that idiot Cazombi and that madman Sturgeon think! Generals stay safe and run the army and that’s what we’ll do, you and me.”
“Cazombi’s responsible for this mess,” Sorca said. “If he hadn’t bled off my engineers and his own troops to prepare this complex, I could’ve stopped the rebels cold and held on to Fort Seymour indefinitely! I should have stuck him in a back room as soon as I got here, but no, military protocol dictated that I take the damned fool seriously and show him deference as the ranking officer here, although I had the authority to override him. That was my big mistake, Jason! Now we’re stuck in this sewer.”
“Balca, as soon as the situation stabilizes, as soon as we break out and get the enemy on the run, Cazombi’s out of here. My recommendation for your promotion to Lieutenant General has already been forwarded to the Combined Chiefs and I expect the President and the Congress to approve it without debate. But Cazombi doesn’t worry me, Balca, it’s that Marine, Sturgeon. We are going to have to keep them on a short rein, Balca. That fiasco with Hill 140 the other day could have spelled disaster for the entire command.” His face reddened again as he remembered the way Sturgeon had treated him in his command post that day. “Marines have their own chain of command and their own voice in the Commandant and I happen to know that the President likes General Aguinaldo. She likes Marines
.”
“So does Cazombi,” Sorca muttered. Billie threw him a questioning glance. “Yes, it’s true. He oversaw a mission that a company from 34th FIST conducted on a restricted world. The officer commanding that company was court-martialed as the result of a complaint filed by a scientist conducting surveillance on that world. Cazombi appeared as a witness for the defense. And you know about his run-in with the chairman over the quarantine policy we’ve had in effect on the Marines of 34th FIST. I don’t know all the reasons why the quarantine was imposed, highly classified stuff, but the word is out that Cazombi’s kissin’ cousins with the Marines, and him an army man at that.”
They sipped the bourbon and puffed on their cigars for a long while. “All these Marines are ‘warriors,’ ” Billie mused at last. “You know the difference between ‘warrior’ and ‘soldier,’ don’t you, Balca?”
“Yes, a ‘warrior’ is a guy who likes to fight, raises his sword, and off he goes at the enemy, but a ‘soldier’ uses discipline and brains to win fights.”
“Well, that’s Cazombi and Sturgeon, Balca, ‘warriors.’ Now, we’re soldiers, you and me. We got where we are because we used our heads. We are too precious to our armies to get ourselves killed. So we’re going to use these ‘warriors’ to our advantage. These fools will be our battering rams and if they’re used up in the process, all the better.”
Sorca grinned and toasted Billie. “How are we going to do that, Jason?”
Billie smiled cryptically. “In time, Balca, in time. All will turn our way in time.”
Suddenly someone was knocking on the door. “Are you all right, sir?” It was Billie’s aide, Captain Woo. “Are you all right, sir?” he asked again, his voice tinged with anxiety, “There’s dirty smoke coming out from under the door!”
Lieutenant General Alistair Cazombi and Brigadier Theodosius Sturgeon sat in a corner of the busy command post sipping gingerly at cups of ersatz coffee. “I apologize for not bringing some of the real stuff in with me,” Sturgeon was saying, “but we came combat loaded, ready to fight.”
“That is only what we expected, Ted,” Cazombi replied. “Tonight, get hold of Captain Conorado and bring him to my quarters, would you? We’ll sit around and lie about old times.”
“Yessir.” Sturgeon sipped his kafe silently for a moment. “You worked a miracle, holding out this long,” he said at last, looking around at the gaunt figures in the CP going about their business.
“Not me, not me. These men and women,” he gestured at the staff officers around them, “they’ve taken a beating and are still full of fight. We really had our asses kicked at Fort Seymour, Ted. If we hadn’t had this redoubt to fall back on we’d have been overrun the first day.”
“I hear that was your doing, sir. And because you held out so long you denied the enemy a bunch of prisoners to use as negotiating chips.”
“Well—” Cazombi shrugged, “he’s holding out for more ‘chips.’ But you’re probably right. If they’d captured the entire garrison at the beginning, the Confederation probably would’ve already granted them their demands. But now you’re here and there are more coming.” He brightened. “But I’ve gotta admit something else, Ted. That enemy over there, he’s smart. He’s flexible in his tactics and he won’t be easy to beat. We’ve always considered these people rubes but by damn, they’re fighters and they’re well led. Since he failed to get us all, now he wants us reinforced so he can win a stunning victory by wiping us all out or bagging our entire force. That is probably the main reason we’re still here; we’re the magnet he wants to draw more troops into the trap.”
Sturgeon nodded. “That, sir, will be his undoing. What can you tell me about our commander? Is he up to a breakout? How much influence do you have on his planning? You’re his deputy after all.”
“You’re going to find out all about General Jason Billie in good time. As for me in this army, I’m going to be kept on a short leash, Ted. It’s Sorca who’ll be running things around here, carrying out Billie’s decisions. They’re both politicians and staff officers, not fighters. But Sorca’s a goddamned coward. I admit, he was essentially without a command when what was left of it retreated into here, but I had to take over command of the troops myself. He’s been no help to me whatsoever. But with him being a big buddy of Billie’s, I expect as soon as there’s a lull I’ll be packed off and Sorca will then take over as both deputy commander and chief of staff and you know how powerful those positions can be in any military command.”
“Ugh, Al, this kafe is terrible!” Sturgeon grinned.
“Don’t ask me what’s in it. Now Billie, his aide, Captain Woo told me, brought in some fine stuff, but it’ll be a cold day on Arsenault before we ever get any of it. That tells you a lot about how he views the role of commander of this army, doesn’t it?”
“So what do we do, sir?”
“We’ll both be in the war council coming up in a while, along with the other unit commanders and the staff. Let’s see what the great military genius in there has come up with in the way of a plan. You and I both know we’ve got to get out of here and maneuver. That’s what you Marines do best. But I am going to tell you something now, Ted, that it pains me to say. In all the years I’ve been a soldier I never thought I’d come to this. I’m through in this army. If I get out of this mess I’m retiring. I’m never going any higher in rank than I now have and I am never again going to serve under an officer like this Billie. If at any time during the campaign that’s coming you feel your men are being used as cannon fodder,” here Cazombi caught his breath, “you would be well advised to make a report to your commandant. Make regular reports to him anyway via backchannels. Document everything that’s about to happen. I know, saying that is disloyalty on my part as an army officer but I’m no longer loyal to that sonofabitch,” he nodded toward the closed door to Billie’s private office, where Captain Woo was pounding on it excitedly, “so expect fireworks from me at this council.”
“Who is that guy at Billie’s door?” Sturgeon asked, nodding at the source of all the noise.
“Captain Chester Woo, Billie’s aide-de-camp. His fat little ass is Billie’s personal fortune cookie.” The pounding became louder and as the two watched, thin tendrils of smoke began creeping out from beneath the door.
Sturgeon glanced questioningly at Cazombi and laughed, “Maybe they’ve managed to immolate themselves in there.”
“This army should be so lucky,” Cazombi grunted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
* * *
More reports from the Force Recon teams operating behind the Coalition lines came in to FIST headquarters, where they were taken seriously even though General Billie continued to dismiss them as unverified and therefore irrelevant. Unlike the Supreme Commander, Major General Koval took the reports seriously enough that he paid a daily visit to FIST HQ to see the updates.
They were far from irrelevant; it seemed ever more likely to Sturgeon and Koval—and their staffs and subordinate commanders as well—that the reports indicated imminent attack by a reinforced division on the section of the perimeter centered on 34th FIST. The reports indicated that section, the easiest to defend, was selected because General Lyons felt it was held by the least capable units in the Confederation force.
“Not only is he dead wrong, we know he’s coming,” Koval murmured when he saw that report.
“Between us, General,” Sturgeon said, “we’re going to give General Lyons the biggest surprise of his military career.”
They grinned warrior’s grins at each other, all teeth and just enough grin to make ’em visible.
There was only one thing that could foul up their preparations. That was in the next reports Sturgeon got from Force Recon.
When Koval read it, he asked the Marine commander, “What are you going to do if His Royal Supremeness orders you to reinforce the main line of resistance?”
Sturgeon only shook his head, he wondered that himself.
The generals and their su
bordinate commanders weren’t the only ones preparing to defend against a major assault; the preparations went all the way down to the newest and most junior men in every unit.
PFC McGinty wasn’t sure of his position in the fire team, not after what Ensign Bass had said when he assigned him to first squad’s third fire team. And the way Corporal Dean acted didn’t inspire him to begin feeling like he was someplace where he belonged. Not that Corporal Dean was treating him like an interloper; McGinty thought his fire team leader was treating him just about exactly the way a fire team leader should treat a new man—introducing him to everybody in the squad and telling him something about every one of them, making sure he knew where to get chow and water, where his position and field of fire were if they were attacked, how to call for medical assistance or ammunition if needed.
But Corporal Dean was so impersonal about it. And he hadn’t sounded like he really meant it when he said, “Welcome aboard, McGinty. Glad to have you.”
Lance Corporal Godenov was warmer in his welcome, but McGinty was a bit put off when Godenov said, “Everybody calls me ‘Izzy,’ but you don’t get to. You haven’t been around long enough to remember when that was a question.”
Now, what was that all about? Was it a play on his name, “Izzy” Godenov? Why would there have been a question? McGinty wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
And they both looked so hard.
At least he knew where to get water, what there was of it, and food—and ammo and medical assistance if needed. And if the rebels came, he knew where his position and field of fire were.
PFC Smedley wasn’t having a much better time of it. Sure, Corporal Doyle and PFC Summers welcomed him warmly enough. But Smedley couldn’t help but feel that a big part of Summers’s warmth was because he finally had someone junior to himself in the fire team. And Corporal Doyle seemed so damned uncertain about everything. It wasn’t that he didn’t know things. Not only did Corporal Doyle tell Smedley where to find water and chow, ammunition and the corpsman, and where the battalion aid station was, but drilled him so he actually knew those things. The fire team leader even put him through drills so he could automatically hit his designated fighting position and field of fire if they were attacked, and how to react if the platoon was called to plug a hole in the lines somewhere else.
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