Into the Maelstrom

by David Drake

  They pressed on.

  A bright orange pulse from some sort of over-charged energy weapon shot over Allenson’s head. He had no idea what if anything it hit. Streamers pumped fire into the windows of any structure in the general direction of the shot. Paint burned off. Wood cracked, spitting flames. Wooden buildings were more a liability than an asset in a firefight. They offered little protection against laser weapons and turned into death traps when they inevitably caught fire.

  At a corner they ran smack into a gaggle of Cornuvians running the other way. The two groups interpenetrated and inextricably mingled. Something struck Allenson hard on the left shoulder. He lost his balance, stumbling sideways over a Streamer who rolled under his legs.

  Allenson fell on one knee. He let go of his carbine with his right hand and placed it on the ground to steady himself. He felt the familiar sensation of combat-time when the universe slowed down. His senses focused down onto whatever microscopic event his hind-brain thought critical.

  A silver combat dagger stabbed the rolling Streamer between the shoulder blades.

  Sunlight shining through the clear cold winter air glittered off the serrations of a double-edged blade. A ferret-faced woman grinned at Allenson, showing a single blackened front tooth. She allowed herself the luxury of enjoying the sensation of killing. She twisted the knife before withdrawing it from the fallen Streamer’s back. Jagged edges tore at his flesh, releasing red blood in slow spurts.

  Allenson used the time the woman wasted in sadism to drop his useless one-handed hold on the carbine. It fell slowly as if in a half-gee gravity field. By the time she attacked he was already upright and balanced. He leaned forward with both feet firmly on the ground.

  She thrust the blade in a vicious upward lunge aimed at his belly. He twisted to one side and deflected it with his left forearm. Momentum carried the woman past. He completed the turn, hitting the back of her neck with the heel of his right hand. He put his whole body weight into the blow. He struck not so much at her but a point ten centimeters beyond her.

  She folded around his hand. The impact propelled her forwards. Her body leaned forwards and her head rotated back to gaze at the sky. With both arms flung out she looked like a devotee of a religious cult who had achieved an orgasmic revelation.

  The woman pitched away like a rag doll and disappeared into the melee. The last glimpse he had was the silver dagger trailing a spatter of blood droplets as it rotated free in the air. Allenson hadn’t shed a tear over Fendlaigh. He wouldn’t waste a moment’s compassion on some psychotic mercenary.

  Rather than look for his lost carbine, Allenson drew his ion pistol. It would have been foolhardy to try to find the carbine in the middle of a rat-fight. The pistol was probably more use at point blank range anyway. He touched the activation switch on the side with his thumb when the barrel was clear of his body. He spared a millisecond to check a red hologram winking above the gun. It signified that the weapon was live and set to full power.

  A Cornuvian ran at him with a rifle. Allenson lightly caressed the trigger to no effect. He cursed his inability to shoot straight. He adjusted his aim. An orange dot shot right across the charger’s body and disappeared. The Cornuvian ran right up to him, reversing his rifle to drive the butt into Allenson’s face.

  At this distance not even Allenson needed an aiming sight. He extended the pistol and fired at less than a meter range. A needle-thin high intensity laser ionized the air between the target and the gun. That created a path for a short but massive electrical discharge that followed almost too quick for the human eye to see. The Cornuvian twisted in muscle spasms and fell backwards. He voided his bladder when he lost control of his body.

  Ion pistols were often used for policing, as the discharge intensity could be set to stun rather than kill, unless the unfortunate victim suffered from a weak heart or some other defect. High intensity yielded only two or three shots before the power supply was exhausted. Such a short range weapon was only ever used in extremis anyway when two or three shots decided the fine line between death and survival. It was a last ditch weapon but occasionally an exceedingly useful one.

  As it happened Allenson didn’t need to fire again. Close combat melees rarely last long and the few surviving Cornuvians broke and ran. Very few made it back to cover. Their fleeing backs made an irresistible target. One or two tried to surrender but were slaughtered out of hand by Streamer troops hopped up on a lethal cocktail of adrenaline and fear.

  The uniforms of the cluster of soldiers around him included unit badges from the Second and Third Regiments. Reinforcements had arrived without him noticing.

  “You want to live forever, people? Advance!” Allenson yelled, waving his arm and jog trotting down the alley.

  It was vital to keep the momentum going while the Cornuvians were dispersed through the town. If the enemy got the chance to organize and take up defensive positions they would soon realize how few were the attackers.

  How does a seventy kilo dog equipped only with teeth bring down a hundred kilo armed man—by all-out attack.

  Urban warfare is nasty and brutal, a series of ambushes and short-range firefights. It is the ultimate infantryman’s battle. Only infantry can comb through a town, driving the defenders out of their hidey-holes. Such terrain usually favors defenders. Preparatory bombardment merely smashes up buildings. The rubble forms a natural fortification for the defenders who creep out of cellars and bunkers like rats after a fire.

  But wooden buildings are more to the attacker’s advantage. They are easy to set on fire using laser weapons. Grenades turn wooden planks into showers of lethal splinters.

  The Cornuvians should have set up defensive fortifications on the ridges around the town perimeter. Presumably no one had ordered them to and most soldiers are not particularly keen on hard physical labor. Once the attack started in the wood-built town their only hope was to burn down buildings to create firelanes and dig in.

  Allenson wasn’t giving them time. Tempo was the often unremembered key component of battle. It could be as important to the outcome as combat and logistics.

  The Streamers came upon mercenaries wheeling a lasercannon out of a garage filled with agricultural gear. They shot down the surprised crew in a flurry of laser bolts. Allenson stopped to examine the gun. It was mounted on a tricycle carriage of two large front wheels and a much smaller one at the rear. It was intended to be towed by a ground vehicle with the rear wheel off the ground or propelled under its own power by a small motor.

  He briefly considered turning it on its previous owners but reluctantly dismissed the idea. He had no idea how to start the motor. Presumably neither did the Cornuvians or they wouldn’t have been trying to push it. Maybe it was malfunctioning or maybe it wasn’t but he didn’t have time to find out.

  Tempo. They had to press on.

  The ground floors of the two-story buildings around the central square were made from stabilized earth slabs. The enemy had knocked loopholes in the walls. One building’s defenders put out enough fire to gun down the first Streamers who tried to rush the building with grenades.

  Allenson’s group found cover. They bombarded the structure with laser fire but their small arms couldn’t penetrate. He was still considering the problem when Hawthorn threw himself down alongside.

  “I do wish you wouldn’t go off on your own like that,” Hawthorn said with a deep sigh. “It makes it very difficult to look after you.”

  Allenson replied with a comment that would have won admiration from a drill sergeant. Hawthorn grinned and stuck his head up to examine the enemy position. He withdrew it sharply when a shot nearly incinerated his hair.

  “Tricky,” Hawthorn said. “What are you going to do?”

  “We can’t just bypass and cut off the square’s buildings,” Allenson said, thinking out loud. “We don’t have enough people to form a perimeter and continue the assault. We can’t ignore them either as they offer a secure fort for the Cornuvians to rally.”
/>   The communications officer crawled into position behind them, sliding his pack across the ground.

  “Sorry sir, I couldn’t keep up.”

  The young man seemed close to tears.

  “Never mind, you’re here now. Find out where our artillery is.”

  The officer busied himself with his gear. After a while he lifted up his head.

  “They’re still on the road, sir, about a kilometer out.”

  “Tell Colonel Pynchon to make all haste and set up on the hills surrounding the town.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Shevent, sir.”

  Allenson nodded, then spoke to Hawthorn.

  “I can’t wait for Pynchon. Pass the word, maximum suppression fire to make the bastards get their heads down, then we rush the place.”

  “They’ll be heavy casualties,” Hawthorn said.

  “I know,” Allenson replied curtly.

  People were going to die because he screwed up again. He should have had the mortars on barges ready to rush them forward. He hadn’t for fear of point defense weapons but the Cornuvians didn’t seem to have any, or at least none ready to go.

  He gave the fire order using his datapad as a loud hailer. There was hardly a need for secrecy as the enemy would soon know what was coming.

  A hail of fire swept across the street, peppering the building opposite. Flakes of earth spun off the outer wall and the defensive fire slackened. There was no better time so Allenson rose to one knee and raised his arm. Naturally, he intended to lead the assault himself.

  A line of continuous heavy laser pulses formed a continuous bright streak. It ran from somewhere behind Allenson’s right ear to the corner of the building. Earth blew out and the corner collapsed. The wooded story above creaked and leaned but maintained structural integrity.

  There was a phut, phut noise like a city delivery van on the move. A second burst chewed up another five meters of wall. This time the top story gave up its unequal struggle with gravity. The whole end fell off onto the rubble below in a rending crash of splintering wood.

  “Charge!” Allenson cried.

  They cleared the building of the handful of defenders who chose to make a fight of it in record time and sniped at those that fled out of the other side to cross the square. While his men consolidated the position and regrouped, Allenson returned to congratulate the little group of Streamers by the cannon on its tricycle undercarriage.

  “’Tweren’t nothing sir,” the Streamer in the gunner’s seat said when Allenson offered heartfelt praise. “This little beauty has a petrol engine just like the tractor on my uncle’s farm. They can be a bit tricky to start if you don’t set the throttle and choke just right. Them Cornuvians flooded the carb. Bloody amateurs.”

  He spat.

  “Right,” Allenson replied, nodding as if he had a clue what the man was talking about.

  “Heads up, someone’s lifting.” Hawthorn’s voice came in clear over Allenson’s datapad.

  A barge rose, shimmering in its Continuum field from somewhere across the square. It accelerated, turning its nose away as it climbed. Troops packed the open luggage racks. Streamers shot their rifles at it without much effect. A second vehicle, some sort of container transporter, followed.

  The tribarreled nose of the cannon lifted. It spun on its gimbals as the gunner stared down at his sight on the controls. The barge was a good five hundred meters off and starting to dephase when the cannon spat.

  Bright streaks connected with the rear of the barge. It exploded, spilling flaming debris and bodies into the air. The main hull rolled end over end and tumbled to the ground where it set light to something.

  The acrid smell of ozone formed by ionized molecules of oxygen recombining in unstable arrangements filled Allenson’s nose.

  The transporter slammed back down out of line of sight so hard that Allenson heard it strike the ground. The driver presumably preferred to risk broken bones rather than be incinerated, a decision that Allenson could well understand.

  That did in the Cornuvian morale. They fled their positions.

  The cannon was soon left behind as the Streamers harried the retreating enemy. The little petrol motor could only propel it at a slow walk. Allenson told the crew to keep it in air-defense mode. Only one small frame managed to make the jump into the Continuum, weaving and twisting to avoid the searching streaks of light.

  Allenson stayed close to Shevent, trying to direct the attack, but it was all happening too fast.

  “I’ve got Colonel Kaspary for you, sir,” Shevent said.

  Allenson leaned over to take the screen.

  “The enemy are pouring out of the back of the town. ’Fraid I can’t hold them. I’ve had to pull back to avoid being overrun.”

  “Very good, Colonel. Harass them and try to slow them down but stay clear. Allenson out.”

  Allenson handed the screen back to the young lieutenant.

  “How fast can you run with that gear?” he asked.

  “As fast as you need, sir.”

  “Very good,” Allenson replied, wondering if he had ever been this young and keen. “Let’s go.”

  Allenson jog trotted down the high street that bisected the town. The odd crump of a grenade or zip of a laser still sounded from deeper into the side streets but the road was clear. Every so often they passed little clusters of Streamers checking out houses and sheds, but they reached the row of outhouses that marked the edge of town without mishap.

  The Cornuvians were nowhere to be seen.

  “Get Colonel Kaspary,” he said to Shevent.

  Allenson climbed onto a shed and surveyed the area with binoculars. Beyond the town the land sloped gently away. The road passed between orchards and various crops that showed up as splashes of green and bright blue.

  “Patching through to your datapad,” Shevent said.

  “Where are they, Colonel,” Allenson asked.

  “You see that patch of trees with orange blossoms flanked on each side by blue fields.”

  “No,” Allenson scanned fields. “Wait, yes, got it.”

  “They’ve dug in there. We’ve got them pinned down with sniper fire.”

  CHAPTER 31

  To the Victor the Spoils

  It took another hour before Pynchon arrived and set up his tubes. The light had started to fade. After a few ranging shots, Allenson had him drop a ten minute barrage onto the Cornuvian position. It was impossible to monitor the effect, but he could imagine the impact of the high explosive rockets dropping almost vertically onto the shallow pits that was all the Cornuvians would have been able to dig. Some of the rockets hit trees, adding sprays of wood splinters into the hell of blast and red hot spinning metal fragments.

  A couple of the missiles malfunctioned and dropped short, adding to the general shambles that the battle had inflicted on the town. The shorts undoubtedly caused Streamer casualties. Allenson cursed. It was a rum do to survive the battle only to be mown down by friendly fire. No doubt the bloody Terrans had supplied them with second grade missiles or those past their use-by date.

  When the artillery stopped he contacted Pynchon.

  “How many rockets do you have left?”

  “We’ve used about half,” Pynchon replied. “I can give you two more five minute barrages or about an hour of harassing fire.”

  Allenson considered his options. That was just enough rounds for preparatory fire to keep the Cornuvians’ heads down while fresh troops from Second and Third Brigades mounted an assault. Even so it would be bloody. Damned few of the mercenaries would survive close assault but the Cornuvians would defend themselves with the desperation of cornered rats. Mercenary casualties he could live with but Streamer losses were a different matter.

  He keyed his pad. “Shevent, put me through to the Cornuvian combat frequencies and broadcast in clear.”

  “Ready sir,” Shevent replied.

  “This is General Allenson of the Cutter Str
eam Army to the commander of Brasilian forces. You have fought well, but your situation is now hopeless. I can bombard you with artillery all night if necessary until you are plowed under. Surrender now and I will extend quarter as laid down by military law.”

  There was a long pause before a reply. When it came it was not what Allenson wanted to hear.

  “Go to Hell!”

  Allenson’s mouth set in a hard line. He prepared to gamble on another throw of the dice.

  “Pynchon, another five minutes at maximum intensity.”

  The rocker barrage renewed. Some of the warheads worked over old craters, throwing loose earth into the air, but others struck new positions. Unfortunately, the bombardment left him precious little ammunition to support an assault. If this gambit failed he would have to either accept heavy Streamer casualties in a frontal assault or let the Cornuvian survivors escape. Neither option was particularly optimum or palatable. He pressed the icon on his pad to broadcast again in clear

  “My previous offer stands.”

  It occurred to Allenson that when Hawthorn had too much money in the pot and a weak hand he invariably raised the bet. He touched the icon again.

  “But now I require you to surrender your equipment intact.”

  He held his breath waiting for a response. There was no answer so he tried once more.

  “Come, sir, you have done all that honor demands. What is the point of further slaughter?”

  “Very well, damn you,” the Cornuvian commander replied. “We’ll surrender our equipment undamaged, what’s left of it.”

  Allenson let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. That was the drawback with mercenaries. No matter how professional, they were never really committed. It wasn’t that they couldn’t or wouldn’t fight, but that they had no particular interest in the strategic outcome. One couldn’t expect them to sacrifice themselves for a cause because they had no cause.

  A Brasilian line regiment might have fought to the finish to tie up Allenson’s army for as long as possible or just for the sake of regimental tradition.