Not For Glory

by Joel Rosenberg

  I figured a bit of false outrage might go over reasonably. "Inspector, I'll have you know—"

  "Enough of that. The Commerce charter provides that offplanet mercenary soldiers can be brought in. Less bloodshed that way, supposedly; I'm not sure. Maybe it's better than letting the locals hack each other to ribbons. But there are limits, and while I'm inspector here they are going to be enforced. Understood?"

  I wiped my hand across my forehead. "I know. No import of military—"

  "—technology beyond whatever the locals already possess. They don't have bombs like that. They can't make bombs like that. And you can't bring them in. Understood?"

  Of course I understood. Shimon should have understood. I'd told him they'd never let us get the messkits by.

  Indess, Gomes's Continent

  Pôrto Setubalnôvo

  Thousand Worlds Port Facility

  6/18/40, 1814 local time

  We rode down on the first shuttle, along with First Battalion, HQ company and the three battalion commanders, who were also acting as Shimon's general staff, plus their own staffs/bodyguards.

  Which was standard—that goes back to the old IDF days, before the exile to Metzada, when none of our soldiers ever set foot on a piece of land where an officer hadn't been first. There's nothing romantic about it, no bravura required—it's just a matter of human economics. We've always had a lot of officer material, and traded off the high mortality among bar-grade and leaf-grade officers for lower casualties among line soldiers.

  Other armies did—and still do—see it differently. That's why we're better. And, to a large extent, that's also why I get to wear my stars at home.

  I followed Shimon out into the daylight, squinting nervously in the bright sunlight. Indess orbits an F4 star; much brighter, whiter light than we use in Metzada's underground corridors.

  "Relax," he said, dropping his pack to the tarmac. "We're on Thousand Worlds territory here, in the first place."

  Maybe so, but the fence, far off in the distance, looked like it was made of wood—not electrified wire.

  We waited while Colonels Davis, Silverstein, and Kaplowitz walked down the ramp, their bodyguards behind them, bows strung and arrows nocked, keeping careful watch on the one-story stone buildings on the south edge of the field. They didn't look any too relaxed.

  After them, the rest of headquarters company unloaded, looking more like line soldiers than the clerks and such that kept the regiment running. Shimon beckoned to Natan Raviv, the captain who commanded HQ company, muttered a few words, then sent him and the rest of the company on their way.

  The rest of First Battalion quickly unloaded, officers leading their outfits down, until there were more than six hundred men on the tarmac, adjusting their packs and checking over their gear.

  "General," I said, "you were saying that the fact that we're on CD territory is in the first place. What's in the second place?"

  Shimon Bar-El shrugged. "I doubt that there's a Ciban within a hundred klicks. They're fighting a defensive war, Tetsuo."

  He turned. "Yonni, over here," he shouted.

  Davis trotted over, his blocky guard behind him. "What is it, Shimon?" Yonaton Davis was a short, wide man, whose girth and blandness always gave me the impression that he was more suited to be a shopkeeper than an officer. I've seen the type before; some compensate by becoming martinets. That's not necessarily wrong, by the way; Eitan was a martinet. So was Patton.

  Yonni took the opposite approach, giving and taking orders with an informality that suggested he was good enough, competent enough, not to have to put on airs. Which probably had something to do with why Shimon had made him the regiment's G-3, operations officer, as well as giving him First Battalion.

  "Yonni, my aide and I are going to go talk to our employers. Have the staffs and the spearheads and the rest of the stores made ready." He pointed toward the north. "There's an open field there; have your battalion bivouac there, and the other two to your west and east. There won't be any trouble here, but set out a full guard, just for practice."

  "I'll set my people to it now, rest of the regiment as soon as they disembark." Davis nodded. "Speaking of practice, though . . ." He bounced on the balls of his feet, experimenting. "We're running a little under nine-tenths of a g here."

  "So?"

  "So, nobody around here has loosed an arrow under this grav, not recently. You want me to set up some targets, get some practice shooting down?"

  "No." Shimon Bar-El turned away.

  "Wait just a moment, General." Davis reached for his arm, clearly thought better of it, let his hand drop. "They have to get some practice—better here than in combat."

  Shimon sighed. "They won't need practice. We're not supposed to win this one." He jerked a thumb at me. "Ask Tetsuo, when we get back. In the meantime, Colonel, just follow orders."

  Davis turned away, wordless. I trotted after Shimon.

  "What the hell was that for?" I kept my voice calm, with just a touch of tremor for effect.

  He snickered. "That's not supposed to be common knowledge, eh? We're supposed to be able to storm a walled city—population about fifteen thousand, three thousand effectives maybe, with two thousand men? While there're horsemen harassing our flanks?"

  In fact we weren't supposed to. And we weren't going to. "That's what the contract says."

  He patted his hip pocket. "I've got a copy right here. It's handy when you run out of bumwad. Tetsuo, I have no intention of just going through the motions. I'm supposed to fail. Damned if I'm going to play wargames just to keep you happy."

  He looked up at me, a smile quirking across his lips. "But I'll do it to keep our employer happy."

  At the edge of the field, he stopped a blue-suited Commerce Department stevedore. "How do I go about finding Senhor Felize Regato?"

  Regato's mansion was clear evidence that little except military tech was on the proscribed list for Indess. The floors looked to be real Italian marble; among the paintings I spotted a Picasso and a Bartolucci—and the glows overhead made me smile: their light was the same color as the glows at home.

  A linen-clad servitor led us into Regato's study, a high-ceilinged room with enough space for a family of twelve, back home. The fur that covered the couch where we sat wasn't oal. That would have been too easy. It was the pelt of some coal-black animal, glossy and soft.

  After the requisite wait—Regato was a busy man, and wanted us to know it—he sauntered in, a tall, slim man with a broad smile creasing his dark face. We stood.

  "General Bar-El, it is a pleasure." He clasped Shimon's hand with both of his own. "And this is your aide, Colonel. . .?"

  "Hanavi, Senhor."

  He smiled vaguely, then dropped into an overstuffed chair, idly smoothing the legs of his suit "General," he said, "I believe we share a hobby."

  Shimon Bar-El didn't return the smile. "I don't have hobbies."

  I glared at my uncle, but he ignored it. This was playing along to keep the employer happy? Contradicting the First Senhor of the Assembly didn't seem to quite fit the bill.

  Regato's brow furrowed, but he kept his tone light. Perhaps too light. "Oh? I thought we were both devotees of military history." He waved a hand at the bookshelves behind him. "I've studied from Thucydides, to," he said, half-ducking his head, "Bar-El."

  Shimon chuckled. "Thank you. But Thucydides was a historian, as you know, not a soldier. And for me, the history of my profession isn't a hobby, it's a matter of business."

  "Point well taken. Your second point, that is. Not your dismissal of Thucydides." Regato raised a finger. "He was, after all, the first to recount battles to preserve them for future generations. I only wish that he had been around later, when Cincinnatus was alive."

  "Well, he would have had to live an extra few hundred years. And have been a Roman, instead of a Greek." Shimon Bar-El cocked his head to one side. "Why Cincinnatus?"

  Regato touched a button on the table at his elbow. "Coffee, please. Three cups." H
e raised his head. "Because he reminds me of you, perhaps. If I remember correctly," he said, smiling in self-deprecation, "he, too, was called out of retirement to command an apparently impossible campaign."

  A shrug. "Different situation. Cincinnatus was honorably retired. I was cashiered and exiled." He sucked air through his teeth. "Hardly the same thing."

  "Hardly a relevant difference on Indess. Even were you capable of taking a bribe, the Cibans would have nothing to offer you. Hunting rights on the oal? You couldn't take advantage of that. Hard currency, the sort Metzada needs? They don't have any. The only offworld trading center is down here."

  A servitor arrived with a steaming silver pot of coffee on a tray with three cups and saucers, plus condiments. We were silent until he deposited the tray and left.

  Regato himself poured coffee for all of us, then sipped his own and smiled. "Ah. On to business. I received your message, and your instructions were followed to the letter. At a warehouse at the port you will find the rulawood shafts you requested—six thousand of them—and spearheads, boxed separately." He set his cup down on its saucer. "We could have attached them for you."

  "Rather have my men do it themselves. You get us all the food I asked for?"

  A nod. "All provisions requested. Dried meat and vegetables, enough to feed two thousand for sixty days. If you find you need more of anything, I can have it sent up to you, if you'll provide a guard for the convoy."

  "I doubt we will." He shrugged. "I doubt that we'll need sixty days to wrap things up. And we can always cut more rulawood ourselves, if need be. Cibo is heavily forested, so I'm told."

  I'd read the report on rulawood, and it sounded useful: similar to bamboo, but lighter and somewhat stronger. It was strong enough that the Ciban villagers had built their walls of it, and were seemingly confident in the walls' strength.

  "Good. We also have the wagons and the drayhorses ready." Regato wrinkled his brow, as though he were about to ask why Bar-El wanted the spearshafts ready down here, if he knew there would be plenty of rula where we were going. Or maybe I'm just projecting: that's what I wanted to ask.

  "So," he said, steepling his fingers in front of his face, "two questions: first, why didn't you ask to have saddlehorses ready? We could provide them, you know."

  "I know. But Metzadans aren't horsemen. And your mounts down here aren't warhorses. I have no intention of putting my men on horseback up against a larger mounted force, every man of whom has grown up as a rider, every one of whom is mounted on a horse that won't panic when some horse or human screams in pain." He shook his head. "We're professionals. Riding warhorses, we'd be amateurs. Riding regular saddlehorses, we'd be doubly amateurs. Not interested."

  Regato nodded. "In that case, I understand why you wanted spears you could use as pikes." His thin smile broadened for a moment. "You see, I do know a bit of military history." The smile disappeared. "Second question: how many ninjas do you have with you? I assume you're going to use assassination."

  Well, that explained why Regato had been willing to hire us, despite the odds. It wasn't just that he believed in the legend that's grown up around Shimon Bar-El, or Metzada's reputation. He had at least a suspicion, heard a rumor about the Metzadan ninjas.

  Shimon Bar-El shook his head. "There aren't such things as ninjas. There haven't been for half a millenium."

  He said that with a straight face. Why not? It was true. Metzada's rumored assassins are only referred to as ninjas by offworlders. And they aren't descended from the Nipponese assassins guilds that died out in the nineteenth century.

  Not directly descended, in any case. The madmen of the Bushido Brotherhood had been reviving the dying arts.

  The cold rock, Metzada, keeps more than one flame burning.

  An assassin can be handy to have around in many military campaigns. It can blow an opponent's organization apart if the top general dies; or, better, if he's kept alive, but all his top staff officers and enlisted clerks are killed.

  Of course, an assassin has to have some sort of cover, preferably one that will let him mix with the troops, without even his own people knowing what his real job is. Inspector-general is a nice one. You usually get to wear your stars, on your off-hours.

  Usually.

  Shimon went on: "And it wouldn't do any good, even if we used assassins, which we don't. I doubt a stranger could survive long enough in the main village to find the commander, and then kill him. Even if he did, so what? Villagers, in a situation like this, aren't going to have a top-oriented organization." Bar-El turned to me. "Don't you agree, Colonel?"

  He was precisely correct, as usual. Which was why I had no intention whatsoever of killing anyone within the village. Those weren't my orders at all. "Absolutely, General."

  Regato spread his hands. "Then how are you going to do it? You're outmanned, in strange territory, and the enemy has greater mobility."

  Shimon Bar-El sat back in his chair. He pulled out a tabstick and thumbed it to life, ignoring the one already smoldering in the ashtray, then took a deep drag, exhaling the smoke from his nostrils. For just a moment, the room seemed very, very cold.

  "Senhor," he said quietly, "you need access to the mountain."

  Regato nodded; his polite veneer faded. "Of course we do—in more ways than one. We need the credits that oal-fur can provide, so that we can bring in power technology, make something of this world. And we need to control the mountains, because the thousand-times-damned Thousand Worlds Commerce Department won't allow reactors on a world that doesn't have a unified government. There are close to a million of us in the valley—we can't allow a few thousand mountain . . . yokels to stand in the way of progress. And let me—"

  "Enough." Shimon Bar-El held up a hand. "You're selling a man who doesn't need to be sold. I don't care. I don't care if the Cibans are brave independents defending their homes, or if they're what you say they are. And I don't care whether your motives are pure or corrupt, Senhor; I care that you pay your bills.

  "As to how I'm going to do it, I'm not going to talk about that. I don't care to, and I don't have to." He jerked a thumb at me. "I haven't even told my aide how I'm going to do it, what I'm going to do."

  I already knew what we were going to do: lose. God forgive me, I knew we were going to lose.

  Indess, Gomes's Continent

  Mount Cibo, western slope

  7/04/40, 1634 local time

  There's an old saying that a battle plan never survives the first contact with the enemy. One of Shimon Bar-El's favorite pastimes was to hold forth on what nonsense that was, pointing at Patton's relief of Bastogne, or Sharon's crossing of the Suez, or Operation Theda Bara, where things went almost exactly as planned—for one side, at least.

  "Besides," he'd say, giving the same pause each time, "the last line in the orders, in the plan, should always be the same, should always prevent the plan from becoming obsolete: if all else fails, improvise."

  We improvised our way up the slopes of Cibo, the horsemen harassing us all the way. In one sense, it was a standoff: anytime we stopped, the pikemen out in front, protecting the archers behind them, they couldn't do more than taunt us from behind the two-hundred-meter effective range of our bows. And whenever we started to move in the direction of the walled village, they'd sweep down on us, forcing us to form a line, pikemen in the front, and so on.

  It sounds trivial, and casualties were low on both sides. Two weeks into the campaign, we'd had only three deaths and about twenty-three serious injuries—all skirmishers who had let themselves stray too far from the main body of the force.

  Only three. . . . Sometimes I lose my sense of proportion. The three dead meant five or so widows at home, at least a dozen children orphaned.

  We were being pushed away from the village, higher up Cibo's shallow slopes. I didn't like it much, as we got nearer the top: all the mountain people had to do was detach a portion of their force, swing around and cut us off at the flat top of Cibo, an extinct volcano.

/>   "Don't bother me with technicalities. Colonel," Bar-El snapped, sitting on the waist-high rock. He beckoned to and then whispered to a runner, who nodded and loped over to where Silverstein's battalion was camped, at the far edge of the clearing. "I'm in no mood to be quibbled with. I don't give a damn whether this pile of rock and dirt is a mountain, a volcano, or a pile of elephant dung."

  We'd let the Cibans force us to climb too far—at least in my opinion. Three klicks away, and about one klick below us, the walls of the village peeked mockingly, just barely visible behind the trees. Still, I could get occasional glimpses of people and animals moving in the narrow streets, and a mass of horses and men milling around the main gate.

  I swallowed, hard. I'd stalled long enough. The Law doesn't apply when we are away from Metzada, but that doesn't mean that what we have to do doesn't affect us.

  "Tetsuo, what is it?" he asked.

  I shook my head. "Nothing. Just looks like they're sending out another detachment." The sun hung low in the sky, a white ball that was painful to look at. "Think they're preparing for an assault?"

  He bit off a piece of jerky, washing it down with water from his belt canteen. "Unless they figure they need another thousand men to deliver an invitation to tea." He hung the canteen back on his belt, then retrieved a tabstick from his shirt pocket. "Probably they're going to take off tonight—cover of darkness and all that—try and swing around the top of the mountain, cut us off, then come at us from two directions."

  The locals' only projectile weapons were crossbows. It was possible to fire them one-handed from horseback, but the rate of fire was pitiful. Reloading a crossbow on horseback was probably not a whole lot easier than firing one from a pitching, yawing saddle.

  But from prepared positions, they could sit behind barricades on solid ground and choose their shots. As a matter of fact, it was possible, at least in theory, that one or more of them had already done that and were lying in ambush, somewhere near us.