Paying the Piper

by David Drake

  "It'd be a short discussion," Huber said, also with a smile of sorts. Major Steuben was as pretty as Doll herself. Frequently his duties involved killing somebody, a task at which Steuben was remarkably good. Inhumanly good, you might say.

  "I don't know anything about Lindeyar except he seemed to expect a red carpet and wasn't best pleased not to have one," Huber said. He rubbed his neck; Doll gestured to the box of tissues on the console.

  "Doll?" he went on, meeting her eyes. "Do you know how bad it is out there?"

  She shrugged in turn. "I know it's not good," she said. "My section's job is to keep up the links with friendly units, so I see all the traffic whether I want to or not."

  "Solace is pushing us everywhere," Huber said. He was glad to talk to somebody. Misery wanting company, he supposed, and he knew he could trust Doll. "We're just trying to block their advances."

  He shrugged again and went on, "The Waldheim Dragoons are landing at Port Plattner in a day's time. They're mechanized and brigade strength, maybe a thousand combat vehicles. They've got powerguns and there's three 5-cm cannon in each platoon. Those'll take out a tank at short range, and a combat car's toast any time they hit it."

  Doll made a moue and patted her tight black hair with her fingertips as she absorbed the information. "I can tell you," she said, staring toward the bulldozed wasteland past the slanting louvers, "that the UC isn't expecting the arrival of any significant reinforcements in the next ten days. I'd have been warned to make sure there'd be circuits clear."

  "It wouldn't matter," Huber explained. "Solace is landing the Dragoons in a single lift. In a week or less they'll be organized and move out. It'd take a month to unload a brigade in what passes for spaceports in the UC, and it'd take longer than that to put the dribs and drabs together as a fighting force. Via, what we've got now isn't a coherent force except for the Regiment!"

  "Could Nonesuch do anything?" Doll asked. "They're the major player in this arm of the galaxy."

  "Lindeyar isn't somebody whose good will I'd want to depend on," Huber said. He chuckled at the thought. "But I sure don't see a better hope."

  He was still wearing his commo helmet out of habit. The faceshield was raised, so the attention signal chimed in his ear instead of being a flashing icon. At the same time Doll's switched-off console lit under Central's control.

  Colonel Hammer's face coalesced out of pearly light. He looked grim, though that was normal for the few times Huber had seen the Colonel make a Regiment-wide announcement.

  "Listen up, troopers," Hammer said. Huber and Basime stared at the display. Hammer's hard gray eyes were locked with theirs, despite the varied angles, and with those of everyone else who viewed the transmitted image. "Orders'll be coming down in two hours. Be ready to move with your field kit. This means everybody. There'll be reassignments of rear echelon personnel to line slots where they need to be filled."

  The Colonel rubbed his forehead; for a moment he looked very tired. His expression hardened again and he went on, "You've been the best soldiers every place you've fought. It's no different here. Do your jobs, troopers; and if I do mine as well as you've always done yours, we're going to pull this off yet!"

  The image shrank and vanished; the memory of the Colonel's words hung a moment longer in the small office. Huber got to his feet.

  "Going to get your kit together, Arne?" Doll said as she squeezed aside to let him past.

  "That's next," Huber said. "First I'm going to see the Colonel."

  He grinned at Doll as he opened the door. He felt numb, and there was a glowing wall in his mind that blocked off all the future except the next five minutes or so.

  "First . . ." Huber said as he stepped into the outer office. "I've got to make sure I'm going back to the line!"

  * * *

  Huber strode toward the TOC entrance, his left leg stiff but not slowing him up a bit. He didn't know how he was going to bluff his way through the guards, but as it chanced he didn't have to. They'd heard the Colonel also, and they knew a lot of people were going to be moving fast on Regiment business.

  Half a dozen figures came up the ramp from the TOC at the same time as Huber reached the wire going the other way. He unhooked the gate and pulled it open, then closed it behind him when they'd passed.

  The last one through was the civilian, Lindeyar. He reached back and caught Huber's arm over the wire. "You, Lieutenant!" he cried. "There's to be a vehicle to carry me to Benjamin!"

  Huber hooked the wire loop to the gate's frame. He pulled his arm away, suppressing a momentary desire to slap the civilian back on his haunches with the same movement. He nodded to the guards and shuffled down the ramp, keeping to the right side as three more officers came out of the buried trailers with set expressions. They were on their way to duties that weren't limited to staring at a display as other people fought a war. . . .

  Huber grabbed the door before it closed; the air puffing from the interior was cool. The man coming out now was Colonel Hammer himself, with Major Kreutzer—the S-4, Personnel Officer—just behind him. Kreutzer's arm was raised; he was in an agony of wishing he dared to physically restrain his commanding officer.

  "Sir!" said Huber, stepping in front of Hammer.

  "Not bloody now!" the Colonel snarled. He looked as though he might bull past. Huber braced himself, but there was no contact.

  "Sir, you said you owe me," Huber said, pitching his voice loudly enough to be heard over the sound of vehicles spinning up all around the base. "I'm collecting now. I want to go back to the field."

  Behind Kreutzer were three other officers, trying to catch Hammer before he went off without answering their questions. Warrant officers sat at consoles to either side of the narrow aisle, immersed in their displays.

  "Huber?" Hammer said. His face thawed like ice breaking up on the surface of a river. "Via, yeah, you're going back if you're able to walk."

  He looked over his shoulder at the personnel officer. "Kreutzer, you wanted a CO for L Company?" he said. "All right, put Huber in the slot. And brevet him captain when you get a chance."

  "No sir!" Huber said. He'd expected the fury in Hammer's expression, so it didn't slow him down as he continued, "Sir, I've never commanded infantry and this is no time for on-the-job training. Send me back to F-3."

  "You only get away with crossing me if you're right, Lieutenant!" Hammer said; and smiled again, minusculely. "Which you are this time. Kreutzer, got any suggestions?"

  "Yancy in L-2's senior enough," Kreutzer said. He shrugged. "We'll see if she can handle it. There's not a lot of choice, not now."

  "Not a bloody lot," Hammer agreed. "All right, and we'll transfer—Algren, isn't it? The newbie we put in F-3 to L-2. Get on with it."

  He pushed past Huber. The S-4 locked down his faceshield and passed the orders on, his voice muffled by his helmet's sonic cancellation field. Huber fell in behind the Colonel, heading back to the surface and an aircar to take him to wherever platoon F-3 was while the movement orders were being cut.

  Lieutenant Arne Huber was going home.

  * * *

  Huber could've held a virtual meeting, but for his first contact with F-3 since his medevac he preferred face-to-face. The platoon could still scramble in thirty seconds if they had to; as they well might have to. . . .

  Fox Three-eight was straight out of Central Repair and hadn't been named yet. Until this moment Huber hadn't seen either the vehicle or its crew, three newbies commanded by a former tank driver named Gabinus who'd just been promoted to sergeant.

  Its forward tribarrel, tasked to sector air defense, ripped a burst skyward. One of the newbies jumped.

  "Relax, trooper," Sergeant Deseau said, making a point of being the blasé veteran. "They're just sending over a round every couple hours to keep us honest. If one ever gets through, then they'll start shelling us for real."

  Nothing would get through while elements of the Slammers were stiffening the defenses of Benjamin. This shell popped above the northern
horizon, leaving behind a flag of dirty black smoke. The sun was low above the trees, though it'd be three hours before full dark. Three hours before the start of the mission.

  "For those of you who don't know me . . ." Huber said. Because Three-three had been knocked out in his absence, eight of the wary faces were new to him. "I've been at Central for the past three weeks, and I'm glad to be back with F-3 where I belong."

  "And we're bloody lucky to have you back, El-Tee," Deseau muttered. "It's going to be tough enough as it is."

  It's going to be tougher than that, Frenchie, Huber thought, but aloud he said, "We're part of Task Force Highball—" the whole Regiment had been broken up into task forces for this operation; Captain Holcott of M Company was leading Task Force Hotel "—with F-2, Battery Alpha, and the infantry of G-1 riding the Hogs and ammo haulers. We'll have a tank recovery vehicle, but it'll be carrying a heavy excavator. If a car's hit or breaks down so it can't be fixed ASAP, we combat loss it and proceed with the mission. Got that?"

  A couple of the veterans swore under their breath; they got it, all right. An operation important enough that damaged vehicles were blown in place instead of being guarded for repair meant the personnel involved couldn't expect a lot of attention if they were hit, either.

  "I'm in command of the task force," Huber continued. "Lieutenant Messeman of F-2 is XO. We've got six cars running, they've got four. There'll be six Hogs—" self-propelled 200-mm rocket howitzers "—and eleven ammo vehicles in the battery, and G-1 has thirty-five troops under Sergeant Marano."

  "Thirty-five?" Sergeant Tranter said. "I'd heard they were down to two squads after the holding action at Beecher's Creek."

  "Sergeant Marano got a draft from Base Alpha an hour ago," Huber said grimly. "They've all had combat training even if they've been punching keys for the past while. They're Slammers, they'll do all right."

  "So what's the mission, El-Tee?" Deseau said. "We're going to hit the hostiles that're pushing Benjamin?"

  "Come full dark, we're going to break through the Solace positions around Benjamin," Huber said. "Other units will continue to defend the city. When we're clear, we'll strike north as fast as we can run."

  "What d'ye mean, 'north'?" asked a sergeant Huber didn't know. He was a grizzled veteran with a limp, probably transferred back to a line slot under the same spur of necessity that had returned Huber to F-3. "How far north?"

  "All the way to the middle of Solace," Huber said flatly. "We're going to take Port Plattner before Solace gets its latest hires into action. We'll cut all Solace forces off from their base and leave them without a prayer of resupply."

  "Blood and Martyrs," the sergeant said; Deseau was one of several who muttered some version of, "Amen to that!"

  "That's what we're going to do, troopers," Huber said. The left side of his body was trembling with adrenaline and weakness. The future spun in a montage of bright shards, no single one pausing long enough to be called a hope or a nightmare.

  "That's what we're going to do," he repeated, "or we'll die trying."

  He laughed, and half the veterans around him joined in the laughter.

  * * *

  A battalion of UC militia held the portion of the Benjamin defenses a klick to F-3's southwest. From there scores of automatic carbines snarled unrestrainedly. The electromagnetic weapons used by all the Outer States fired with a sharper, more spiteful sound than chemical propellants; the fusillade sounded like a pack of Chihuahuas trying to pull down an elephant. Occasionally a ricochet bounced skyward, a tiny red spark among the gathering stars.

  "What've they got to shoot at?" asked Padova from the driver's compartment. Rita Padova had proved solid when it came down to cases, but she didn't like twiddling her thumbs and waiting for the green light. "Did somebody jump the gun, d'ye think?"

  "They're nervous, they're shooting at shadows," Huber said. "Keep the channel clear, trooper."

  He frowned to hear himself. If he hadn't been wound too tight also, he wouldn't have jumped on Padova that way. With careful calm, Huber went on, "Wait for it, troopers, because it ought to be happening right about—"

  The sky flickered soundlessly to the northwest: not heat lightning but a 20-cm bolt from one of the tanks holding high ground at Wanchese, thirty kilometers from Benjamin. A moment later there was an even fainter shimmer from far to the east. The panzers were shooting Solace reconnaissance and communication satellites out of orbit. Until now the warring parties hadn't touched the satellites, a mutual decision to allow the enemy benefits that friendly forces were unwilling to surrender.

  The Slammers had just changed the rules. The war was no longer between Solace and the Outer States but rather between Hammer's Slammers and the rest of the planet. If the disruption from Solace's certain retaliation caused problems for the UC, that was too bloody bad. To pull this off, the Slammers had to hide what they were doing for as long as possible.

  An instant after the big powerguns fired, the rocket howitzers of Battery Alpha cut loose with three rounds per tube from their position near Central Repair in the heart of Benjamin. Backblast reflected briefly orange from wispy clouds in mid-sky before the bright sparks of rocket exhaust pierced them and vanished in the direction of Simpliche.

  "Blue element," Huber said, "the batteries in Jonesburg and Simpliche'll be scratching our backs in about eighty seconds. You've all got the plan, you all know your jobs. In and out, shake 'em up but don't stick around, then reform on at grid Yankee-Tango-Four-four-three, Two-one-four where the Red element will be waiting."

  Red element was Messeman with F-2 and the artillery. The guns couldn't move till they'd fired the salvo that would rip the Solace units which threatened Simpliche.

  Besides the Slammers' Battery Alpha, there were ten mercenary batteries in Benjamin. It would've been simpler to delegate the preparatory barrage to the others so that Battery Alpha could move instantly, but there was the risk the orders would be intercepted—or ignored.

  Central chose to add a minute and a half delay to the Red element rather than chance much worse problems. Huber's combat cars would be delayed much longer than that while they shot up the firebase that anchored the Solace forces facing Benjamin.

  "On the word," Huber said, "we'll—"

  The sky to the east and west popped minusculely. If Huber had been looking in just the right direction, he might have seen tiny red flashes as bursting charges opened cargo shells several kilometers short of their targets. Calliopes, multi-barreled powerguns, began to raven from the Solace positions. They directed their cyan lightning toward the sub-munitions incoming from both Jonesburg and Simpliche.

  The initial shells were packed with jammers—chaff and active transmitters across the electro-optical spectrum. The second and third salvos burst much closer, spewing thousands of anti-personnel bomblets with contact fuses and a time back-up to explode duds three minutes after they left the cargo shell.

  "Blue element, execute!" Huber ordered, feeling Fencing Master lift beneath him as Padova anticipated the order by an eyelash.

  The six combat cars reversed out of the semi-circular berms protecting them from direct fire and advanced through the open woodland in line abreast. Solace troops weren't in contact with the Benjamin defenses anywhere that the Slammers stiffened the line. Hostiles couldn't conceal themselves from the Regiment's sensors, and anybody who could be seen vanished in a fireball in the time it took a trooper to squeeze the thumb trigger of his tribarrel.

  Nevertheless Learoyd fired as Fencing Master rounded its fighting position, his blue-green bolts raking trees and leaf-litter forty meters from the car. Flames blazed yellow-orange from a shattered treetrunk. If anybody else had shot, Huber would've thought they were jumpy; Learoyd was as unlikely to be jumpy as he was to start lecturing on quantum mechanics.

  The artillery impact zone was out of Huber's sight, but the sky flickered white with reflected hellfire. At least one round of the second salvo escaped the calliopes' desperate attempt to sweep the carg
o shells out of the sky before they opened. The calliopes stopped firing when the glass-fiber shrapnel scythed down the gunners who hadn't thrown themselves under cover.

  As the crackling snarl of the single previous round reached Huber, all six shells of the third salvo burst over the target. The sky beyond the branches was bright as daylight, and the blast remained louder than the car's intake howl for nearly a minute.

  The bomblets were anti-personnel, but several must have hit fuel or munitions. Secondary explosions, red and orange and once the cyan dazzle of ionized copper, punctuated the ongoing white glare.

  Huber swore softly. He knew he should've felt pleased. The firecracker rounds were landing on the enemy, clearing a path so that Task Force Huber had a chance of surviving the next ten minutes. Sometimes, though, Huber found it hard to forget that the hostiles were human beings also, soldiers very like his own troopers.

  And maybe Huber wasn't alone in his reaction. Frenchie Deseau, nobody's choice for Mr. Sensitive, pounded the coaming with the edge of his left hand. His right was still on the grip of his tribarrel, though.

  Stray bomblets had lit scores of small fires outside the main impact area. That and the continuing roar had confused the troops in the ring of Solace bunkers outside the firebase berm. Huber's faceshield alerted him for the oncoming target for thirty seconds before Fencing Master wheeled around a giant tree and got a clear view of a low log-covered bunker some sixty meters away. The defenders had cut three firing lanes through the undergrowth to give them several hundred meters of range along those axes, but Padova had split a pair of them and Foghorn to Fencing Master's right had done the same.

  Huber aimed at the bunker's firing slit. The car's jouncing advance through the forest made perfect accuracy impossible but he didn't need perfection, not with the amount of energy in a 2-cm bolt.

  Cyan flashes caved in the bunker's thick face and shattered the collapsing roof despite the layers of sandbags overhead. Ammunition inside blew the wreckage into the air a moment later. The shockwave shoved Huber hard against the side of the fighting compartment and slewed Fencing Master against a treebole.