by Danny Loomis
“I think it went well today, gentlemen. Your thoughts?”
Racine sipped his glass of wine with appreciation. “The pledges of manpower were gratifying, sir. We should have a regiment of recruits to work with by this time next month.” He pulled at his earlobe. “We made quite a haul when the armory in Richland was raided. We’ve sent most of those weapons to groups spread up and down the coast. They’ve trained in their use for over a month now. Tied in with our success at the diamond vault, it’s boosted morale and recruitment efforts.”
Major DeVries smiled, a disturbing sight to the two men who faced him, since he had a mouthful of stainless steel implants due to a past injury. “The latest weapons payment has reached my superiors, and they’ll agree to send more, enough to supply your army with up-to-date weapons, Senator. You agreed to five hundred carats of Star diamonds, and one thousand of the white for the next shipment. Once we receive a third of the payment, the weapons will be sent. The balance will be paid us when the merchandise is in orbit. Is that still the case?”
Jean sipped his wine. “It is, Major. However, that includes additional training cadre for the duration. I’ll personally provide pay and allowances for you and your men. Shall we say three carats of white diamonds per soldier, plus an additional one carat of Star diamonds for yourself, per month?”
DeVries nodded. “Of course, sir. We will remain at your disposal. However, if you wish us to take a direct part in the fighting, hazard pay should be included.” He gulped the rest of the wine. “One additional carat total for each man, and two carats of Star diamonds for myself.”
Jean carefully set his glass on the table. “I can’t give what I don’t have. Our resources will be stretched to the breaking point just paying for the delivery.”
“Five hundred kilograms of diamonds were taken out of that vault before it was destroyed. You could bribe a planetary government with what you’ve got.”
“Which is what I’ve done, Major. I’ll tell you what, though. If you take an active part in our campaign, and agree to be Colonel Racine’s second in command, I’ll guarantee you five ounces—twenty-five carats—of Star diamonds as a bonus. If we are successful.”
Devries licked his lips. “Agreed. Now with your permission, sir, I’d better brief my men.”
Racine watched him leave. “I don’t trust that greedy pig.”
Jean shrugged “Neither do I, Henry. However, he is useful to us. When that’s no longer the case, who’s to say an accident might not occur?” He waved the matter away.
“Never mind him for now. I have to be back in Richland soon, so I’ll leave tomorrow. This will be our last chance to discuss plans face-to-face for quite some time. I’m concerned about the Orion response. They may send more than just a cruiser or two this time. If they land troops, can we respond?”
Racine nodded. “Yes, sir, I think we can make them wish they’d stayed home.” He unfolded an old fashioned printed map of the western continent. “They’ll have to respond to incidents from five hundred kilometers north of Richland, to one thousand kilometers south of there. Since these won’t be much more than setting off a bomb at each location or a few executions, it won’t take specially trained personnel to do this. The troops already in place can do that.”
Jean took a last swallow of wine. “Good, good. That should leave us trained fighters in strength around the mines.”
Racine pulled on his right earlobe. “Right now we can field two battalions of trained men, with weapons. Unfortunately the heaviest weapons we have are 60 millimeter mortars. We could take any one of the mines except the Star Diamond mine.” He tapped the map for emphasis. “That one’s got an entire battalion of government troops protecting it and the airfield. One company of Orion regulars is also there. Too much firepower to mess with, at least until we have a regiment of trained soldiers. Then we can make a clean sweep of all the mines at the same time.”
Jean frowned in thought. “The government has to have known that the vault raid was an inside job. Any indication our contacts have been compromised?”
Racine grinned. “No. In fact, one of our men was the officer in charge of the investigation. Made it easy to point fingers elsewhere.”
“Could we use one of our spies to try and draw out some of the defenders around the airfield or from one of the mines?”
The Colonel rubbed his chin in thought. “That’s a possibility. Let me think on it.”
“How’s security here?” Jean asked. “Any indications of our being spotted?”
“We’ve been very careful not to allow any beaten paths to develop close to the tunnel mouths. Major DeVries has shown us how to add to our camouflage, as well as beefing up our security. The new sensors he brought increased our abilities tremendously in noticing anyone who gets too close. If we’re found, we can evacuate through various underground tunnels, and come up miles away. Our transportation to the southern continent’s in place, if that occurs.”
He pulled on his earlobe again. “About the Major. Like I said, I don’t trust him. He’s got an agenda of his own. I just haven’t been able to find out what it is.”
“Yes he does, Henry. But it doesn’t matter once he’s dead, does it?”
The object of their discussion had just entered the portion of the mine set aside for them. Every time he met with Senator DeVille he wanted to puke. So like a weasel-faced politician. He snorted. Of course that’s what he’s like, he is one. Not someone to trust. Another two weeks or a month, and who would care what the senator thought. It wouldn’t matter who ran the government here once Alliance plans came to fruition.
Captain Vogel, the Undertaker, came hurrying toward him. “Did it go as you thought it would, Major?”
“Yes, Captain, as we planned.” He smiled. “So well, in fact, they are going to give us a bonus.”
Vogel gave a rictus of a smile. “They want us to take part in the fighting?”
“Yes. That should cover any extra activities they notice. Signal Control to double the weapons deliveries, starting tonight.” DeVries was content. Things were going as planned, and they were ahead of schedule. Life was good.
STAR’S END (Day +16):
Lieutenant Stanton had just put the final touches on the briefing he was due to give militia commanders later in the day, when Sergeant First Class Nance walked into his office with a bemused expression on his face. “Sir, there’s a call for you.”
“Who is it, Platoon Sergeant?”
“It’s the regimental secure line, sir, and it isn’t coming from ground side.”
Stanton was in the commo room before his tipped-over chair crashed to the floor. He settled in at the secure phone, and shooed the communications specialist out of the room.
“This is Alpha One, go ahead.”
“Scout One here. How’s it going, Jerry?”
“Li! Li Kwan, is that you?”
“None other, buddy. I’ve got some of my troops on the ground at the moment, looking for bad guys. One group is headed your way, and should make contact with you on this frequency within the next several hours. No one, I repeat no one, is to know about this until the regiment gets here.”
Lieutenant Stanton found himself standing, a face-splitting smile spread across his features. “It’s about time we heard from you yahoos. Did you say the regiment? You mean the entire regiment is coming?”
“Same thing as. Two reinforced battalions, and they don’t want any nasty surprises when they land, so we’re pulling a deep recon for ’em. My contact will need any intel you can give her as to suspected bad guy dispositions. Think you can help out?”
Stanton sat down. “I’m sure we can provide some tidbits. One thing. We’re sure the raid was an inside job, which means the local militia is compromised, probably at high levels.”
“I’ll pass that along when the Old Man gets here. We’ve got some ideas for a Regimental landing zone, but your input would be helpful. Primary LZ is the airfield near your location, but we need to firm
up our secondary choices. If you could give that data to Sergeant Weiss it would be helpful.”
“Will do, Li. You don’t know what a relief it is to hear you’re in the area. Oh, be on the lookout for Alliance ships. The Marston has picked up ghost echoes on their scanners that could be stealthed ships out there. Nothing in the past three days, but before that it was kinda busy.”
“Thanks, Jerry. I probably won’t contact you again until the task force gets here, since we need to keep a low profile ourselves. Scout One out.”
* * *
Brita halted the team just below the back side of a small, tree-covered hill. Since most things were covered with trees or brush, it was hard to keep track of an exact location without access to global positioning systems built into everyone’s helmet. Ian was behind Brita, and passed on her hand signal to take a break. Brita crouched next to him and flipped up the shield on her helmet, so she could talk off-line.
“Irish, you and I will meet with Lieutenant Stanton from Alpha Company. The track they’ll be coming down is on the other side of this hill. Follow me and keep it quiet.” Her shield snicked back into place and she was up and moving before the words left her mouth.
They both dropped and crawled the last few feet to the top of the hill. The slope was steep on the far side, a dirt road running by its base. They eased their way down one at a time, using the boles of trees and bushes to maintain control. At the bottom, they settled beneath several low bushes.
Brita keyed to the regimental net. “Alpha One, we’re in position. Check your map displays for our location. What’s your ETA?”
“One wheeled vehicle in thirty minutes,” came the reply. “Two passengers.”
Brita opened her face shield again. “In case you’re wondering, I brought you along since you’ll be leading the other team once we split up from here. Intel from the horse’s mouth is best in these situations.” Ian nodded, the knot in his stomach growing bigger.
For the next twenty minutes, Ian’s imagination ran riot while he imagined what might go wrong once he and Pointy were by themselves. His breathing rate increased, and a slight tremor developed in his legs. He took a deep breath, held it for a second, and let it out. Relax, you jerk. Go with the flow. He emptied his mind, and forced out the pressure-cooker emotions a breath at a time. By the time the expected vehicle rolled to a stop he was once more calm.
Two soldiers in Orion army fatigues stepped out. With a muffled exclamation, Brita bounded to her feet and walked toward them.
“Staff Sergeant Nance. How’re you doing? Haven’t seen you since you left the platoon.” She took his outstretched hand and wrung it.
“Valkyrie! By God, it’s good t’ see your sorry ass, and it’s Platoon Sergeant Nance now,” he said. “Lieutenant Stanton, this is one of the best team leaders in the regiment, Sergeant Brita Weiss, better known as Valkyrie.”
Stanton shook her hand. “I’ve heard about you, Sergeant.”
Brita waved Ian over, and introduced him. “Even though Irish is fairly new to the LRS, he’s the best sniper we’ve had since I’ve been around.” Ian colored at the unexpected praise.
“Okay, Brita, Lieutenant Kwan said your time was limited, so I’d better give you all the intel we’ve got so far,” Stanton said. He pulled out a data chip, and handed it to her. “This gives you the lowdown on what happened during the attack on us at the mine and airfield. We’re certain there were several personnel inside the militia itself who assisted at the airfield. They got through the perimeter too fast and easy.”
“Any activity since the attack?” Brita asked.
“Not anything in force. Several probes, especially at the southern and western mines.” He looked at Nance. “You have the latest word on those, Top.”
“Mostly sniper fire and the occasional probe at perimeters. The militia have lost several men.”
“We can do something about that,” Brita said. “Once the task force gets here, the Recon Platoon will switch to sniper missions for awhile. Nothing discourages a sniper faster than someone who’s taking pot shots at them.”
“One thing we didn’t put on the data chip,” Nance said. “We’ve got lots of artillery ammo, and we can range out t’ thirty-five kilometers with our 100 millimeter howitzers. You need a fire mission, we can drop it right in your lap. We’ve trained the planetary artillery types t’ the point they’re almost our equal.”
Brita smiled. “We might make use of that, even on deep recon. Expect a call if we get a juicy target. You got any bunker buster rounds?”
Stanton nodded. “Yep, and we can put them into a ten meter circle out to our max range. Just give us the coordinates, and consider it busted.” He and Nance moved toward their vehicle. “We’d better get back on the road. Don’t want anyone to wonder what took us so long for a call of nature.”
“Good luck, Valkyrie,” Nance called as they sped off.
Brita watched them go, then looked at the data chip she’d been given. “Let’s get back to the others. Looks like we’ve got what we came after.”
Back with the team, Brita had them gather round. “We’ll move two kilometers west, and settle in for the night. I’ll give you the scoop on what Lieutenant Stanton told us, plus the information on the data chip after we’ve gotten ourselves dug in. The teams will split off tomorrow at dawn. Pointy, take the lead. J.C., rear-guard.”
An hour later they settled in to a small stand of young trees on the side of a gently sloping ridge, fifty meters north of the game trail they had been following. Snoopers were placed, and each team member built a defensive position. J.C. and Blade were north-south, Irish and Pointy west-east. Brita was in the center. There was a small spring coming from the ground near Brita’s position, which was turned into a watering hole for them. Each team member topped off their canteens.
Once settled in for the night, Brita gave them a heads-up signal on their helmet coms.
“Since there’s only five of us, we’ll have one awake at all times, to monitor the sensors. J.C., start with you and go clockwise from there. We’ve got twelve hours until first light tomorrow. Spend the next two hours eating and prepping for the next week’s worth of recon. That’ll leave each person two hours of sentry duty. I’ll take last watch. Stand-to will be fifteen minutes before first light.” She paused for a drink of water from her canteen.
“Lieutenant Stanton felt there were some security leaks with troops stationed at the airfield. This means don’t trust the local military unless I tell you otherwise. They’re not all the enemy, but some of them are. Secondly, if you’re within thirty-five klicks of the airfield, they can provide artillery fire, to include bunker busters. Do not call in artillery support without going through Lieutenant Kwan. It would have to be a very juicy target to endanger our primary mission. Clear on that point?” Heads nodded.
“Okay. Now for the fun stuff. The data chip I got from the Lieutenant gave current information on local towns, villages and homesteads within our area of operations. He also provided several suspected areas of enemy concentration. Lieutenant Kwan has updated our helmet maps with this information, as well as a couple new sightings of suspicious activity within the area we’re scouting. Key on your maps, and I’ll show you.” The inside of Ian’s face shield came alive with a greenish glow, and a topographical map formed. Several red dots were blinking.
“Each of those dots represents a recon satellite sighting of people or vehicles moving in our zone in a way that led the computer to think suspicious thoughts about the activity. I’ve identified our teams as Blue 1, my group, and Blue 2, Irish and Pointy. Franny’s three teams will be white ciphers on your maps.”
She leaned back and switched off the map. “From this point on, talk with each other only over helmet coms. Consider everyone a potential or actual enemy. If someone discovers you’re around, break contact and leave the area. Hopefully they’ll think you’re just a patrol for the other side. If we run across any concentrations of Alliance soldiers, let Kwan know soo
n as possible.” She stood, took off her helmet and scrubbed her head vigorously. “If there are no questions, get back to your hidey-holes. I’m gonna take a bath.”
“Phew. ’Bout time I’d say,” someone muttered as they were turning away.
“I heard that, Pointy,” Brita growled.
“Hey, why am I always the one blamed for everything,” Pointy complained, an injured look on his face.
Ian smiled as he eeled back into the shallow trench he’d prepared. Sounded as if Pointy was in a good mood for this little jaunt into the countryside.
* * *
“Scouts up.” Ian’s eyes popped open. Fifteen minutes before first light, the most vulnerable time on patrol. Everyone locked and loaded, and watched their front. With sensors, their eyes and ears were extended almost two kilometers on line of sight, and two hundred meters in rough terrain like they were presently in.
“Scouts out. Good hunting, Irish,” came the call from Brita. He double-clicked acknowledgment and led Pointy to the south. Brita and her team were angling due north, then west. Each of them turned on their ghillie suits.
When they topped out on the next ridge line, Ian waved Pointy towards the south.
“Take the lead, Pointy. We should come on the first settlement in the early afternoon. We’ll catch some z’s before reconning it, probably about 2400 hours, to make sure they’re all asleep. If anyone’s still around.” Pointy gave a grunt of assent, and led off. Less than ten percent of the terrain was flat, with the rest being murderously steep mountains which surrounded them. They’d have to walk twice the distance vertically to achieve even a kilometer of straight-line distance.
Trails laced their route, some well defined while others were dim and ancient. Logging roads were common, but to be avoided if possible. They moved into old growth timber which meant easier travel due to the lack of underbrush. It was dark and quiet under the looming trees. Faint sounds were magnified and made them jumpy, which was just as well. They had scarcely a second’s notice before two figures paced into view one hundred meters to their left front.