by Rick Shelley
"That would be hairy," Keye agreed. "But there aren't any handy access routes, except for this one, and we're sitting across that. From the map shots I looked at, there's no way they can get tanks within two kilometers of us except straight up the valley. They'd have to land shuttles to get men behind us easily, or quickly, and the captain is sending two thirds of the Vrerchs we have left up to the top of the hill to make that difficult."
"There's something else we need to talk about, Lieutenant," Joe said after looking around him. "Goff." Kam was twenty meters away, and they were talking over their private radio channel. Still, Joe led the lieutenant farther away.
"A problem?" Keye asked.
"A serious one, I'm afraid. Goff tries, none harder, and he's got all the skills, but..." Joe shook his head. "He sees a little blood and he spends the next half hour puking, past when he's got nothing left to come up. He's just not cutting it, Lieutenant, and he knows it. Combat is eating the hell out of him."
"We can't do much about that now," Keye pointed out.
"I know that, sir, but as soon as possible, we need to get him away from combat, 'fore he eats his carbine, or does something else really stupid. He can't take much more. Like I said, he tries, but the way he gets, I'm surprised he's lasted this long. He wants to do the job, but I've had to keep him damn near in my armpit just to make sure he didn't fall apart."
"You think the skull jockeys can straighten him out for us?"
Joe hesitated, then shook his head again. "No, sir, I don't think he'll ever make it in a combat unit. Maybe they can fix his head so it doesn't eat at him that he failed. But for this, he could be the best I've got."
"But the way he is, he's a danger to himself and the men around him—that what you're trying to tell me?"
"Yes, sir. That's what I'm saying. I've done everything I know how to, but it doesn't get any better. In fact, he seems to be getting worse every time. I don't think he can handle much more." Joe repeated that final thought consciously, knowing that the lieutenant would realize just how desperate he thought Goff's condition was.
"Keep somebody with him at all times. As far as possible. I'll talk to the captain when I get a chance. I don't know about evacuating him with the wounded though. That might make it even harder for him."
"Yes, sir, it might." Or he might fall apart on us completely the next time there's a little gunfire, Joe thought. He kept that notion to himself. He would watch over Goff personally, as he had been.
"What's the watch schedule, sir?" Joe asked then. "Alternate fire teams?"
Keye nodded. "Until something happens. You'd better bed down with the first shift. You're looking a little ragged."
Joe didn't bother to argue.
—|—
Eight Schlinal Boem fighters came out of the north, an hour before dawn. Moving at low speed and medium altitude, they were not spotted until their target acquisition systems locked on to the first Wasps and Havocs.
A depleted Blue flight was flying air cap over the Accord foothold on the plateau when the attack came. Only four Wasps were left of the six that Blue flight had brought down into Porter's atmosphere. Two planes and one pilot had been lost in a week of fighting. After being in the air an average of sixteen hours out of every twenty-four, all of the remaining Wasps of the 13th's squadron needed extended periods of maintenance. There had been no catastrophic failures yet, but nearly every pilot had reported that warning lights were coming on during some maneuvers. But until the campaign ended, the ground crews could do nothing but make patchwork repairs, just enough to keep the Wasps flying for another day... or another hour.
Zel Paitcher and Slee Reston were flying a loose figure-eight pattern along the northern half of the Accord's hold on Porter when the attack came. Moving in opposite directions, the two Wasps were able to keep watch over more area at one time. Zel and Slee, like all of the remaining pilots in the air wing, were also in need of extended periods of time on the ground, to catch up on sleep and get their minds fresh again, but like their Wasps, the flyers would have to wait until the campaign ended for that.
All eight enemy fighters came directly at Slee and Zel, at full acceleration, and the first enemy missiles were launched almost instantly once the Boem target acquisition systems locked on. Only two Boems fired at the pair of Wasps. The Schlinal pilots might be aggressive this time out, but they were not wasteful of rockets. Both Blue three and four were targeted, Zel from ahead, Slee from behind. At the angle of approach, Zel was able to get his own lock on the missile headed for Slee, blowing it apart with his cannons. That blast radiated enough heat to draw the other missile off course. While Slee turned toward the oncoming Boem fighters, Zel went through the full menu of countermeasures to keep the other weapon from regaining its lock.
Then he too moved toward the enemy flight.
The remaining two Wasps of Blue flight were forty kilometers away—more than a minute and a half at their best speed. In air combat, ninety seconds is an eternity.
"Get in the middle of the Boems," Slee told Zel. "That way, they can't get too fancy without endangering their own planes."
"Right behind you," Zel said. He had already switched his weapons selector to rockets, ready to loose a spread at the first targets his system locked on to. Then he would switch back to cannons. Designed primarily for ground cover missions, the 25mm guns were not particularly well suited for air-to-air combat, but in these close circumstances, there was little choice. The guns did have the virtue of putting concentrated amounts of firepower into a very limited area. Even reinforced plane armor could be damaged by that sort of assault, especially at extremely close range.
The eight Schlinal fighters broke into separate pairs, giving way before the counterattack of the two Wasps. Antigrav aircraft—and like the Wasp, the Boem was an antigravity drive fighter—were the ultimate in mobility. A skilled pilot could move his fighter around in three dimensions with an ease that would astound anyone who had not done it for himself. By reversing the directional push of the antigrav drive, the Wasp pilot could also reverse his direction quickly, or change altitude with equal acceleration, even flip the fighter end for end or turn it upside down much faster than any plane that depended on traditional notions of aerodynamics for lift. The limiting factor was the gee-load that the pilot could stand. Slamming a Wasp into a full reversal of its gravity field could press a pilot against his restraining straps with enough force to dislocate bones. Or worse.
The challenge was to learn to outwit the opposing pilot, to guess which way he would go before he knew himself.
As this uneven battle was joined, Zel lost sight of Slee for seconds at a time. The heads-up display on his canopy provided a constant reference, but there was too much going on for Zel to always have actual eyeball contact with Slee's Wasp. In the middle of the flight of Boems, each of them worked to reduce the odds. Zel and Slee did have one very slight advantage to partially offset the numbers. They had more targets, and only one friendly craft to avoid. But their ammunition was limited.
"Going to have to break this off soon," Slee managed to say about forty-five seconds after the fight had been fully joined. "I just shot off my last rockets, and I don't have more than another twenty seconds on my guns."
"Ditto that," Zel said, just as he fired his last pair of rockets. Between them, they had managed to bring down three of the eight enemy fighters, but it was getting more difficult to maneuver. The Schlinal pilots were learning to cope with their tactics.
"Let's lead them toward the others," Slee said, turning his Wasp even before he finished speaking.
Lead them without getting far enough ahead to make a missile shot tempting, Zel thought. That would be a monumental task, edging south, drawing the Boems along without giving them a clear shot.
"Our best bet, I guess," Zel conceded. His target acquisition system locked on to another Boem. The Schlinal pilot jerked sideways, flipping his Boem upside down and dropping five-hundred meters to evade a rocket that Zel no lon
ger had to fire. And he was far beyond the effective range of the cannons in his Wasp.
Neither Zel nor Slee was expecting help before the other two Wasps of Blue flight could arrive. They were nearly as startled as the Schlinal pilots when three planes of Red flight appeared on the scene, still climbing, attacking the Boems from below. With the numbers momentarily even (even though Zel and Slee were virtually out of ammunition), the Schlinal attack grew more disjointed. Two of the Heggie pilots decided to grab as much altitude as they could, retreating straight up, then turning back toward the north.
"Red leader, this is Blue three. We're about dry. Think you can handle them until our other two boys get here?"
"Blue three, that's affirmative. Hurry back or you'll miss all the fun."
Fun? Zel thought. But he headed for the LZ just the same.
—|—
The attack on the ground started almost as the attack in the air was breaking up. This was no probing raid, as the first Schlinal attack on the perimeter had been. This assault was in force, hitting at three different points along the perimeter, a total of perhaps three short battalions of infantry supported by Nova tanks as well as the Boem fighters. As many as sixteen Schlinal aircraft eventually joined in the fray. Though their losses quickly ran over fifty percent, the surviving Boems did not abandon the attack until they were out of ammunition or running short of power for their antigrav drives.
The 13th had been anticipating the attack. Recon patrols had come close to contact with two of the attacking battalions. The fronts in the sectors facing those units had been quietly strengthened during the night. The most imminent danger was on the front that the third Schlinal battalion assaulted. Bravo Company held that sector, and they had only a few minutes warning before the enemy was on them.
Van Stossen and Dezo Parks hurried toward that sector with the headquarters security detachment. That only added sixteen rifles, but there were few other reinforcements to offer. Maneuvering back through the central portion of the land the 13th controlled, the remaining Havocs were firing as quickly as they could reload and acquire new targets, but there simply were not enough howitzers to stop an attack by themselves.
"Be nice if we could get Echo and George back in a hurry," Dezo commented as they approached Lieutenant Jacobi's command post.
"It would be, but I don't think we can manage. They're having their own troubles. We're going to try to get one shuttle in to evac their wounded, but I think that more than that is out of the question just now. I can't even spare them Wasp cover until this settles down," Stossen said.
"I know," Dezo replied. "I was just making up my wish list. I'm afraid to even hope that our relief will show up in the nick of time."
"You've been watching too many commando vids," Stossen charged. There was still no word about the relief fleet. It certainly was not in-system. If it was, they would have been in contact. And once they did jump in-system, they would need eight hours to get into position to launch the air cover the 13th would need to withdraw safely. And the new fighters would need thirty minutes to get low enough to be able to take part in the battle once they were launched. Infantry reinforcements would take even longer.
"I kinda like the happy endings." Ones where you don't run out of ammunition before you run out of enemies, Dezo added to himself. That did not seem likely this time.
Stossen pulled out his mapboard and started comparing what he saw on that with the reports he was getting from the various company commanders. Half the Wasps—half the remaining Wasps—were on the ground getting fresh batteries or replenishing their munitions. Dealing with the air attack had kept most of the Wasps out of ground cover missions. Even after they took off again, there was still enough air activity to keep them occupied. Only in the most desperate of circumstances could Stossen pull one or two of them away to make a quick strafing run on the attacking Heggies, or a rocket attack on Nova tanks—on their way to meet the Boem fighters.
"Jacobi, I hope you haven't forgotten how to fire a zipper," Stossen said when he had a break from his radio conversations.
"I hope so too, sir," Jacobi replied with an earnestness that might have elicited a laugh in other circumstances.
"I think it's all time we got a piece of this." Three more rifles? Stossen's shrug was microscopic. He knew that he had no business going to the barricades and working like a mudder himself. He had broader responsibilities... but those would scarcely matter if the line broke now.
—|—
"You did good, Goff," Joe told the shaking private. "Now just stay calm." He thought that, this time, Kam might even avoid the sequel to each of the earlier skirmishes. There were no bloody corpses close at hand. Second platoon had taken no casualties in this fight, and the Schlinal casualties were all more than eighty meters away, some much farther away.
"Yeah, I don't have to puke this time," Kam said through obviously clenched teeth. "I haven't eaten anything in hours. Long as I starve myself, I'll be okay."
Joe sucked in a deep breath and held it for a moment, more concerned at the bitterness he heard in Goff's voice than at what had happened the other times.
The Schlinal infantry had tried one direct assault, into the valley and up the 40-degree slopes that bounded it, but the combination of long-distance artillery and the wire guns of the Accord soldiers above had turned back that assault, inflicting heavy casualties on the Heggies. The remains of three Schlinal Nova tanks, destroyed as they supported the infantry attacks, effectively kept any more of the armored vehicles from entering the valley below the positions held by Echo and George companies. One of the disabled tanks was still smoldering. Fifteen kilometers away, more or less, three Havocs of Basset Battery continued to bombard the Schlinal armor and infantry. At least two Novas had left, moving at what had to be close to their maximum speed on such broken ground, no doubt hunting the artillery that was hitting to such effect. If any other Novas remained in the vicinity, they had stopped bombarding the ridge. Joe doubted that there were any left nearby.
The only thing missing from the Schlinal attack had been Boem fighters. Joe did not know that there was also a battle going on up on the plateau at the same time, and that the enemy's available fighters were all busy there.
Joe had used a Schlinal rifle against that first assault, and he had suggested that the rest of the platoon do the same. "Save the weapon you're familiar with for when things get close," he advised. Even Lieutenant Keye had accepted his recommendation—and made it an order. He had also passed it along to Captain Ingels, who then issued the same order to the rest of the strike force. Use the enemy rifles first. When you run out of ammo for them, throw them away—that much less weight to tote around when we leave this place.
The frontal attack had ended ten minutes before.
"They might try it again," Ingels warned over the channel that linked him with all of the platoon leaders and platoon sergeants. "I imagine they'll think about some sort of flanking movement first, but there's no easy way for them to do that, no way that we can't counter. But they will attack again. If it doesn't come sooner, expect it when the shuttle's visible, just coming in. That will be too tempting for them to pass up." Three squads from the recon platoons were out watching the most likely routes for any attempted flanking movement. If it came, the recon teams were equipped to slow the enemy down long enough to allow reinforcements to reach them. But if the enemy got too close, or those missing Schlinal Boems turned up, the shuttle landing might have to be postponed.
"How long till the shuttle arrives?" one of the platoon sergeants asked.
"It's on the way now. Twenty minutes. The rest of the 13th is under attack on the plateau, so we're going to have to do without any air cover. If the shuttle spots enemy fighters in the air, they'll abort the landing, stay high until the Boems have to return to base."
"Do we have a wide enough cordon to keep the shuttle safe?" Lieutenant Vickers asked.
"I don't think anything but a Boem could get close enough in time,
" Ingels said. "Maybe a tank, but I think the rest of the Novas pulled out. In any case, we've done all we can as far as LZ security is concerned. We put much more up there and the enemy would be able to overrun our positions here."
Joe more than half tuned out the conversation at that point. He lifted his head to look down into the valley. There were still bodies out there, but none of them looked as though they had moved since the end of the fight. If any of those men were merely wounded, they were not making any noises that Joe could hear.
Second platoon was back on half-and-half, one fire team from each squad in position on the crest of the ridge, watching, the other back and below, eating or seeing to their equipment. The fight was too recent for anyone to be sleeping yet. That could not come until the adrenaline of battle had a chance to dissipate.
"I want platoon sergeants and squad leaders to check on the ammunition their men have left," Ingels said. It was enough to pull Joe's attention back. "Our own zippers and the captured rifles. I want to know just how much resistance we have left." How long we have before we're no better then cavemen with fancy-looking clubs.
Those orders marked the end of the radio conference. Joe relayed the order to 2nd platoon's squad leaders. "Ezra," he added over a private channel, "you handle first squad. Time you get used to it."
"I'll do the inspection," Ezra said. "Can't get used to thinking of myself as squad leader yet."
"This is how it happens, Ez." Joe's tone didn't invite any continuation. He really did not think of himself as platoon sergeant yet either. That would require dealing with the idea of Max's death. There was no time for that now.
Joe walked along behind the outer ridge, stopping to talk with men in each of 2nd platoon's squads. He knew everyone in the company, not just in his own squad or platoon. To a greater or lesser extent, he had worked with everyone in Echo Company, even the recruits who had only reported to the unit two weeks before the 13th shipped out for this campaign. No one questioned his new role as platoon sergeant. That was the way of the military. No soldier was irreplaceable. Joe had been the senior squad leader in 2nd platoon. It was obvious that he would move into the higher slot if it became vacant. Chain of command. When one link was broken in combat, everyone lower in the chain moved up one link.