Into the Maelstrom

by David Drake

  Buller might be short changed on many of the qualities needed to make a gentleman but he knew how to conduct a siege. Allenson lay on his stomach in a dugout on the reverse side of the slope overlooking Oxford. He surveyed the town through a scope mounted in a camouflaged port drilled through the crown of the ridge. Buller and Todd squatted behind him.

  The Brasilians rigged gun towers to give clear fields of fire over the town buildings onto the open causeways leading to the mainland and the Streamer lines.

  “The cannon will have excellent low light sensors. I hope no one is under any illusions that a night attack would be any less of a slaughter,” Buller said.

  Allenson assumed that to be the case and hardly needed the obvious to be pointed out. That never stopped Buller. What the besiegers needed was heavy artillery to smash up and breach the defenses and keep the defenders’ heads down during the assault. Allenson may as well wish for immortality while he was at it—and a plate of warm muffins.

  Heavy artillery tended to be metal based and so was incredibly difficult to transport across the Bight. Perhaps that was fortunate as otherwise the Brasilians would have entire batteries at their disposal. None of the Stream colonies had the industrial base to make their own.

  Lasercannon were mostly ceramic and silicon crystal-based devices. They were horribly expensive to manufacture but easy to transport through the Continuum, not least because they didn’t require metal ammunition. But their properties caused certain tactical limitations, notably direct line of sight fire restrictions. The Stream Army ideally needed weapons that could be mounted safely in artillery pits. Guns capable of lobbing indirect fire at the enemy.

  Many of the old militia regiments had lasercannon, which were now coopted into the Army. But Allenson was under no illusion about the end result of a war of attrition between direct-fire lasercannon batteries should he choose to start one. The Brasilians could simply ship in more to replace losses. The colonials couldn’t. They couldn’t manufacture new ones either or even carry out any but the simplest repairs.

  “How about the mortars captured by Morton,” Todd said. “We can manufacture mortar shells easily enough. Couldn’t the tubes knock out the gun towers long enough for our infantry to carry the city by storm?” Todd asked.

  “I thought some idiot would suggest that so I have arranged a little demonstration,” Buller replied. “Seeing is believing, so I’m told.”

  He tapped the small datapad strapped to his wrist. Artillery crews must have been on standby because the blunt cough of the mortars started up within seconds. The laser cannon in Oxford responded with the same alacrity, no doubt on automatic. The light beams were theoretically invisible unless they were aimed directly at an observer’s eyes, in which case the hypothetical observer would soon need a new head. In practice atmospheric dust and water vapor compromised light coherence such that the laser pulses left streaks of incoherent light across the sky.

  The first mortar bombs exploded over the edge of the siege lines. The lasercannon picked them off but the fast rate of fire from the simple artillery weapons moved the intercept barrier closer and closer to the town. The centralized fire control of the lasercannon prioritized which targets to defend once the defenses started to be overwhelmed. The selection chosen by the weapons defending Oxford suggested that these priorities included the gun towers themselves and certain strategic assets but not civilian property.

  The rain of fire continued until hits registered on Oxford roof tops and in the streets. The light bombs caused but slight damage. A single hit on the side of a tower chipped off small fragments of syncrete.

  “Cease fire, we’re just wasting ammunition,” Allenson said. “Even when we get a strike we barely scratch their paintwork.”

  Buller tapped his pad and the mortars wound down.

  Todd said hesitantly, “I suppose we could make larger rocket-fired guided missiles with armor piercing warheads.”

  Buller dismissed the idea.

  “We could but it might be more useful to set up a catapult and throw rocks at them. At least rocks would take more than one laser pulse hit to knock out, unlike your rockets, and we have plenty of stone. Bloody fool suggestion.”

  Todd’s face reddened. Allenson wasn’t sure whether it indicated embarrassment or anger. Perhaps fortunately the Brasilians chose that moment to switch their cannons to manual and sweep the ridge with laser fire. Impacts washed over the siege lines like dragon’s breath. Earth fused into glass. Ground water converted into superheated steam exploded the heat-crystals like a firework display. Allenson might have found it rather beautiful if his face were not pressed into the ground.

  Fortunately Buller’s besieging units were so well dug in that the laser cannon barrage was little more than a gesture of defiance. A few bits of vegetation not yet completely scorched by earlier attacks caught fire. Greasy black smoke drifted into the air.

  Allenson noticed an odd phenomenon when laser bursts overshot the peninsula into the marsh. The pulses flashed bright green and created rods of thick green vapor in the air like giant fingers pushed into blancmange. The laser fire penetrated only a few meters as if fired into fog.

  Crushing his curiosity he examined the town through the scope. Bodies lay scattered amongst the wreckage where a mortar bomb had hit a market stall in a square. He noticed the bright colors of women’s and children’s clothes among the fallen.

  “There are to be no more artillery demonstrations without my written permission,” Allenson said.

  Two weeks later and nothing had changed. The Brasilians settled into a garrison force. Allenson’s concern that he would have to be the one to break the strategic log jam hardened into certainty. The Stream Army was at the peak of its preparation for battle. The only direction for the army’s efficiency now was down. People began to lose interest as marked by a rise in the desertion rate. He was required to demonstrate that service was not voluntary by making examples.

  Bored men rapidly become malefactors of one sort or another. The root of the problem often involved alcohol. He considered declaring the army dry but Hawthorn strongly advised against such a course.

  In desperation he called an open meeting of all officers for a brainstorming session. The junior officers expressed enthusiasm for a simultaneous dawn assault by foot along both causeways coupled with a low altitude frame attack to the flanks. Morton was the prime mover of this plan. He spoke most eloquently in its support.

  Buller heaved himself to his feet and repeated his objections to an assault with his usual pithy tact. Allenson noted the detrimental effect Buller’s comments had on the other officers and intervened.

  “Thank you, Colonel Buller, for your contribution,” Allenson said.

  Unfortunately, Buller carried on as if Allenson hadn’t spoken.

  “And our green army of amateurs is not going to be able to take casualties. They’ll break and run and they won’t stop until they reach home.”

  The fact that the comment was possibly true made it all the more unwise, particularly when garnished with Buller’s normal contemptuous sneer.

  “Sit down, Colonel Buller,” Allenson said curtly.

  Mouth dropping open, Buller sat. Army to his core he obeyed the voice of command before remembering that he didn’t respect amateur generals.

  “If I have understood the intelligence reports properly,” Ling said, inclining his head respectfully in Hawthorn’s direction, “the issue is the naval lifeline into Oxford. Cut that and we have the strategic initiative.”

  Allenson could have kissed him. The intervention came just in time to stop Buller from saying something stupid.

  Morton piped up. “My unit could attack the ships out in the Continuum, General. We could do to the Brasilians what you did to the Terrans in the last war.”

  Allenson shook his head reluctantly.

  “I only had to deal with a single slow moving convoy of lighters moving down a chasm. I knew exactly where to find them and could attack any time I
liked. We didn’t have to destroy the convoy, just slow it down. Even then it was a close-run thing who collapsed with exhaustion first. You’d have to maintain standing patrols around a hostile base and engage purpose-built gunships. The Brasilians could hit your patrols at times of their own choosing until they wore you down. I have better uses for your men, Morton.”

  “What about using artillery?” asked a captain who clearly hadn’t watched Buller’s demonstration. “Landed ships would be sitting ducks.”

  “Won’t work,” a major said.

  “Major Pynchon, commander of artillery,” Ling said quietly to Allenson.

  “Our mortars are too light and we don’t have enough,” Pynchon said.

  “Surely the lasercannon—”

  “Only if you want them smashed by direct line of sight counterbattery fire,” Pynchon said, patiently stating the sheer bloody obvious.

  The captain sat down red-faced.

  Hawthorn rose and walked to the situation hologram in the center of the horseshoe-shaped amphitheater. The display lit up in yellow and green, giving him a ghostly appearance. He pointed to a third peninsula that jutted into the bay. It was considerably lower and shorter than the other two, terminating in the marsh well before the open water.

  “How about we dig in here and put lasercannon in fire pits deep enough to keep them out of line of sight to counterbattery fire but just shallow enough to light up incoming ships. The end of this peninsula should be close enough to the open water to give us a working angle of fire.”

  There was dead silence and Ling inspected the ceiling as if it had been painted by an artist of singular talent.

  “Look, I know lasercannon are ineffectual against military transports and large ships but they could scare off the tramp ship captains,” Hawthorn said, clearly surprised at the lack of response.

  “I can see why you might think so,” Ling said carefully “but it won’t work.”

  Hawthorn showed his exasperation. “Why the hell not?”

  Ling explained. “The marsh, you see, surrounding the peninsula, has a peculiar biochemistry. Vapors given off by the mud ignite from laser shots. The resulting hydrofluoric acid steam mix is highly corrosive. You’d be lucky to get off three or four shots and the pulses wouldn’t get out of the swampy area before dissipating into heat.”

  “So that’s what I saw down on the siege lines,” Allenson said, recalling the laser pulses ending in bright green flashes. Now that he thought about it, they hadn’t actually made contact with the sediment but ended in the air.

  “So how come these vapors aren’t a problem for people on the causeways to Oxford and the port complex?” Hawthorn asked.

  “It’s a matter of height, the gasses being heavier than air. Occasionally conditions coincide to cause the causeways to be submerged but that’s hardly much of a problem. People just hop over the top using frames or wear a ‘breather.’ The vapors aren’t dangerous unless you inhale them or ignite them with a spark or some such.”

  “Have you never thought of draining the marsh?” Allenson asked, curious as to why Oxford allowed itself to be almost cut off by useless and potentially dangerous swamps.

  Ling shrugged. “People have thought about it and even tried to raise money for land reclamation projects. Nothing has ever got very far. Sooner or later there’s an accident taking out the pumping gear and, well, land’s cheap around Oxford.”

  “So we just sit here until the Brasilians have stockpiled sufficient materiel to attack us,” Hawthorn said impatiently.

  “Unless you have a better idea, Colonel,” Ling replied.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Indirect Approach

  A few days later Allenson slumped in his office, wrestling with the endless and insoluble problems associated with logistics, when there was a knock at the door. Military historians like to write about battles and stories of great derring-do. Real soldiers spend most of their time organizing supplies and trying to prevent their men dying of various foul diseases, malnutrition or boredom-induced accidents.

  “Yes,” Allenson snarled, irritated at the interruption when he had almost worked out why the camp bakery was churning out loaves wholesale but no one had any fresh bread. Apparently the quartermasters demanded that the old stale bread be eaten up first. The end result was that the troops’ bread was always stale no matter how much fresh bread was baked.

  One of Krenz’s men cautiously put his head around the door.

  “There’s a lady to see you, boss. I told her you’d ordered not to be disturbed but she was pretty damn rude about it.”

  Krenz’s goon had a nose that had been broken at least twice and a vivid-white knife scar that ran across his left cheek. Allenson’s imagination balked at imagining what he would consider rude.

  “You had better show her in,” Allenson said, intrigued.

  “Yes, gov, but she also refuses to be searched,” the goon said plaintively, “in fact she told me to stick my detector up my—”

  “I get the picture,” Allenson replied.

  The goon momentarily retracted his head. It reappeared on the right-hand side of a lady in traveling clothes consisting of a lined green cloak and boots. His associate goon on her left-hand side fingered his lasercarbine as if escorting a ferocious carnivore who might turn on them without provocation.

  “Stand down, men,” Allenson said. “Although undoubtedly highly dangerous, the lady has had plenty of opportunities over the years to assassinate me at her leisure. Hello Trina, what are you doing here?”

  Trina waited for the honor guard departure before replying.

  “Really, husband, getting a little paranoiac aren’t we?”

  “Um, well, it’s not me. My Head of Security is overzealous.”

  “Yes, I heard Hawthorn was back,” Trina said neutrally.

  “So what are you doing here?” Allenson asked. “Not that I’m not delighted to see you,” he added hastily, getting up to hug her in case she got the wrong impression.

  “Yes, well, you should be flattered that I bothered,” she said, mollified. “You know how I hate traveling.”

  Allenson pulled up a chair for her and, after a suitable inspection of its cleanliness, she sat.

  “There are stories circulating that morale in the army is not all it might be.”

  “There are always moaners,” Allenson replied, somewhat defensively.

  “Yes, but the complaints are increasing in letters home and not just from the usual suspects. I decided to bring a deputation of officer’s Wags to boost them out of it.”

  “Wags?” Allenson asked.

  “Wives and girlfriends: we’ve formed a club”

  “What? How many? What am I going to do with them?”

  Trina raised an eyebrow.

  “Do? You? With them? Nothing I should hope, husband. No doubt we can leave the various couples to sort out their own arrangements to everyone’s satisfaction.”

  Allenson blushed. Trina looked stunning. No, she looked like Trina but she behaved with more energy than she had shown for years. Being thrown back on her own resources to run their demesne obviously agreed with her. He had tried to take the weight off her shoulders after they had married, perhaps too much. He knew he had an unfortunate tendency to take over down to the smallest detail. Had he stifled her? She smiled at him and he forgot about the self-obsession.

  He opened the office door and yelled out.

  “I’m in conference if anyone asks and I do not expect to be disturbed by anything short of a Brasilian major assault.”

  He slammed the door, walked back to his desk and touched an icon that sealed his office suite from prying. He lifted Trina’s hand and touched it to his lips.

  “You must be very tired after your long journey and there is a comfortable couch in my private room. Why don’t I show it to you? You may want to lie down or something.”

  He ushered her into the back room with an urgency that he hadn’t shown for some time.

  “Di
d I teach you nothing about project management?” Trina asked rhetorically. “What do you think you have a staff for? Hmmm? I leave you alone for five minutes and you’re back to your old habit of letting your juniors pass their problems upwards.”

  Allenson mumbled something about duty that didn’t sound very convincing even to him.

  “You must be the only general in the world who tries to micromanage the bread ration.”

  “An army marches on its stomach,” Allenson countered, trying to remember where he had heard the cliché.

  “This army won’t be doing much marching anywhere if their commander continues to confuse his role with the chef. Pass the order down the line that you expect the men to have freshly baked bread each day and that you’ll be carrying out snap inspections with a view to making an example of someone. Better still, send Hawthorn. That should spread some fear and loathing where it will do most good.”

  “It might at that,” Allenson said feebly.

  Trina ignored him.

  “Come on, get the files open and let’s go through them to decide who’s going to get dumped on—I mean delegated to.”

  For the next two hours Trina reorganized his workload. She used a mixture of blackmail, threats and flattery to parcel tasks out amongst various officers. After a token protest or two he let her get on with it and by the end his burden had been significantly reduced.

  “There, now you have time to think,” Trina said with some satisfaction.

  “That will be something of a novelty,” Allenson replied.

  He buzzed for Boswell, who appeared in the doorway within seconds, which suggested he had been expecting a summons. Trina did a double take at the servant, possibly because of his attire. Today it involved fluorescent orange shorts down to the knees and a shirt decorated with hypnotic whirlpools.

  Allenson didn’t turn a hair. He’d seen it all before.

  “See if you can find two tolerably clean cups and make us some cafay, please.”