by David Drake
“Melisant, ease off a bit,” Ruthven said over the intercom as he opened the roof hatch. “We don’t want to spook our allies, over.”
“You mean they’ll mess their pants, El-Tee?” Melisant said. “Yeah, we don’t want that. Out.”
The fan note didn’t change, but the driver let gravity slow the heavy vehicle as they started up the slope toward the entrance. Ruthven thumbed the lift button and a hydraulic jack raised his seat until his head and shoulders were above the hatch coaming. This way the Royalists could see him instead of watching forty tonnes of steel and iridium growl toward them impassively.
Ruthven tried to keep his face impassive as he eyed the barrier. It was a tangle of protruding roots and branches, no harder to climb than a ladder. Defenders firing over the top from the other side would have very little advantage over an attacking force. The common soldiers carried locally made automatic rifles, but the three blockhouses spaced around the wall mounted pulsed lasers; each weapon had its own fusion bottle.
The Lord’s Army wasn’t any better equipped, but the Prophet Isaiah certainly did a better job of building enthusiasm in his followers than King Jorge II did. Rumor had it that Jorge and his three mistresses had left Pontefract for a safer planet several months ago …and this time rumor was dead right. Ruthven’d heard that from a buddy on Colonel Hammer’s staff.
The command car eased through the S-bend at the base entrance. Melisant was squaring the corners, apparently to impress the locals. Ruthven looked down at them, trying to keep a friendly smile. They were impressed, all right, waving and cheering so loudly that sometimes he could hear them over the car’s howling fans.
Good Lord they’re young! he thought. It really was a war of children. Most of the Royalist soldiers were teenagers and so undernourished they looked barely pubescent, while the Lord’s Army recruited ten year olds at gunpoint from outlying villages.
It’d go on for as long as King Jorge managed to pay the Slammers and the Five Worlds Consortium shipped arms to the Prophet. A whole generation was dying in childhood.
History was a required subject at the Academy; Ruthven had done well in it. The realities of field service had provided color for those textual accounts of revolts, rebellions, and popular movements, however. That color was blood red.
He’d expected a vehicular circuit inside the wall, but the interior of the compound was sprinkled randomly with shanties and lean-tos except for the road from the gate to a clearing in the center. The four howitzers were emplaced evenly around the open area, each in a low sandbagged ring which again must’ve been built for its morale value.
“You want us up between the guns, El-Tee?” Melisant asked. “Looks like they dump the resupply there and the troops hoof it back to their billets, right? Over.”
“Roger that,” Ruthven said. “Break, Unit, we’ll form in the central clearing while I figure out what to do next. Six out.”
Blood and Martyrs! This’s looking more and more like a ratfuck. Ruthven hadn’t been thrilled by the assignment from the start, but until E/1 got to Firebase Courage he hadn’t have guessed how bad things really were.
He’d expected the Royalist troops to be ill-trained and poorly equipped …because all Royalist field units were: the defense budget never percolated far from the gaudily dressed officers in the capital, Zaragoza. He hadn’t expected Fire Support Base Courage to be so ineptly constructed, though. It was a wonder that the Lord’s Army hadn’t rolled over the position long before.
The Headquarters complex was four aluminum trailers which’d been buried in the ground to the right of the gate. A tower in the middle of them carried satellite and short-wave antennas, making the identification obvious and coincidentally providing an aiming point to the Prophet’s gunners. The Lord’s Army had only small arms, but painting a big bull’s-eye on your Tactical Operations Center still isn’t a good plan.
An officer in a green dress uniform with gold crossbelts was coming up the steps from one of the trailers, steadying his bicorn hat. The three aides accompanying him were less gorgeously dressed; that, rather than the rank tabs on his epaulets, identified Lieutenant-Colonel Carrera.
Ruthven dropped into the compartment again. As soon as Melisant brought the car to a halt, he swung the rear hatch down into a ramp and stepped out to meet the Royalist officers.
Carrera stopped where he was and braced to attention. A rabbity aide with frayed cuffs scurried to Ruthven and said, “Sir, you are the commander? My colonel asks, what is your rank?”
Ruthven frowned. Instead of answering, he walked over to Carrera and said, “Colonel? I’m Lieutenant Henry Ruthven, in command of Platoon E/1 of Hammer’s Regiment. We’ve been sent to you as reinforcements.”
“A lieutenant?” the Royalist officer said in amazement. “One platoon only? And where are the rest of your tanks? This one thing …”
He flicked his swagger stick toward the command car.
“ …this is not enough, surely! We must have more tanks!”
What Major Pritchard, the Slammers Operations Officer, had actually said when he assigned Ruthven was, “to put some backbone into the garrison.” It wouldn’t have been polite or politic either one to have repeated the phrasing, but now Ruthven half-wished he had.
“We’re infantry, Colonel,” Ruthven said calmly, because it was his job …his duty …to be calm and polite. “We don’t have any tanks at all, but I think you’ll find we can handle things here. We’ve got sensors to give plenty of warning of enemy intentions. We’ve got our own powerguns, and we have direct communications to a battery of the Regiment’s hogs.”
“Oh, this is not right,” Carrera said, turning and walking back toward his trailer. “My cousin promised me, promised me, tanks and there is only this tank.”
“Sir?” said Ruthven. Sellars was bringing her squad in; the jeeps of Heavy Weapons followed closely. “Colonel! We need to make arrangements for the siting of my troops.”
“Take care of him, Mendes,” Carrera called over his shoulder. “I have been betrayed. It is out of my hands, now.”
Carrera’s aides had started to leave with him. A pudgy man in his forties, a captain if Ruthven had the collar insignia right, stopped and turned with a stricken look. The Royalists didn’t wear name tags, but he was presumably Mendes.
“Right, Captain,” Ruthven said with a breezy assertiveness that he figured was the best option. “I think under the circumstances we’ll be best served by retaining my troops as a concentrated reserve here in the center of the firebase. We’re highly mobile, you see. We’ll place sensors around the perimeter to give us warning of attack as early as troops there could do.”
That was true, but the real reason Ruthven’d decided to keep E/1 concentrated was so that his troopers could support one another. Self-preservation was starting to look like the primary goal for this operation. The Slammers’d been hired to fight and they would fight, but Hank Ruthven knew the Colonel hadn’t given him troopers in order to get them killed for nothing.
All elements of E/1 were now within the compound. Hassel’d put the troopers with 2-cm shoulder weapons on the wall aiming northeast, toward the ridge they’d just come from. Both the tribarrels covered the high ground also.
The ten troopers with sub-machine guns faced in, keeping an eye on Ruthven and the babbling crowd of Royalists. They weren’t threatening; just watchful. With their mirrored faceshields down they looked like Death’s Little Helpers, though, and they could become that in an eyeblink if anybody gave them reason.
“We’ll need the use of your digging equipment,” Ruthven continued. “The bulldozer and whatever else you have; a backhoe, perhaps?”
“We have nothing,” Mendes said.
Ruthven’s face hardened; he gestured with his left hand toward the dug-in trailers. His right, resting on the receiver of his slung sub-machine gun, slipped down to the grip.
“They went back!” Mendes said. “They came, yes, but they went back! We have nothing here, o
nly the guns; and no tractors to move them!”
Bloody hell, that was true! Ruthven’d assumed he wasn’t getting signatures from heavy equipment during E/1’s approach simply because nothing was running at the moment, but the shanties scattered within the compound would make it impossible for even a jeep to move through them.
“Right,” said Ruthven. “Then I’ll need a labor party from your men, Captain. We have a few power augers, but there’s a great deal of work to do before nightfall. For all our sakes. However the first requirement is to garrison that knob.”
He gestured toward the high ground. When Mendes didn’t turn his head, Ruthven put his hand on the Royalist’s shoulder and rotated him gently, then pointed again.
“It’s not safe to give the enemy that vantage point,” Ruthven said. To any real soldier, that’d be as obvious as saying, “Water is wet,” but real soldiers were bloody thin on the ground on Pontefract.
And it seemed they all wore Slammers uniforms.
“Oh, we can’t do that!” Mendes said. “That is too far away!”
“Together we can,” Ruthven said. “I’ll put a squad there, and you’ll supply a platoon. We’ll rotate the troops every day. Dug in and with fire support from here, they’ll be an anvil that we can smash the rebels if they try anything.”
“Oh,” said Mendes. “Oh. Oh.”
He wasn’t agreeing …or disagreeing, so far as Ruthven could tell. He sounded like a man gasping for breath.
“Right!” Ruthven said cheerfully, clapping the Royalist on the shoulder. “Now, let’s get to your ops room and set up the assignments, shall we?”
He’d put Rennie’s squad on the ridge the first night, though he might also take Sellars’ up for the afternoon to get the position cleared. He could only hope that the Royalists would work well under Slammers’ direction; that happened often enough on this sort of planet.
“Top?” Ruthven said to Hassel over the command push as he walked Mendes toward the trailers. He’d cut the whole platoon in on the discussion through the intercom, though he was blocking incoming messages unless they were red-tagged. “Take charge here while I get things sorted with our allies.”
He paused. Because Mendes could theoretically hear him …in fact the Royalist officer appeared to be in shock …Ruthven chose the next words carefully: “And Top? I know what you’re thinking because I’m thinking the same thing. But this is going to work if there’s any way in hell I can make it work. Six out.”
“Good morning, Hank,” a professionally cheerful voice said. “Oh! Were you napping? I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“Just thinking, Lisa,” Ruthven said, opening his eyes and smiling at Lisa Mahone, the Frisian recruiting officer. Apologetically he added, “I, ah …I haven’t gotten around to the papers, yet.”
He thought he saw Mahone’s eyes harden, but she sat down on the side of his bed and patted his right leg in a display of apparent affection. She said, “Well, I’ve used the time to your advantage, Hank. I told you I hoped I’d be able to get Personnel to grant you a two-step promotion? They’ve agreed to it! I’m authorized to change the recruitment agreement right now.”
She leaned forward to take the folder from the side table, her hip brushing Ruthven’s thigh. “How does that sound, Captain Ruthven?”
“It’s hard to express, Lisa,” Ruthven said, forcing a smile to make the words sound positive. He slitted his eyes so that they’d appear closed. In truth he didn’t know what he thought about the business; it seemed to be happening to somebody else. Maybe it was drugs still in his system, though Drayer’d sworn that they’d tapered his dosage down to zero thirty-six hours ago.
Ruthven watched silently as Mahone amended the recruitment agreement in a firm, clear hand. She was an attractive woman with dark, shoulder-length hair and a perfect complexion. Her pants suit was severely tailored, but the shirt beneath her pale green jacket was frilled and had a deep neckline.
The gold-bordered folder not only acted as a hard backing for Mahone’s stylus, it recorded the handwritten changes and transmitted them to the hospital’s data bank. There they became part of the regimental files, to be downloaded or transmitted by any authorized personnel.
Mahone wasn’t as young as Ruthven’d thought when she approached him three days earlier, though. Perhaps the drugs really had worn off.
“I have to admit that I didn’t have to do much convincing,” she said in the same bright voice as she appeared to read the document in front of her. “My superiors were just as impressed by your record as I am. Very few graduates in the top ten percent of their class join mercenary units straight out of the Academy.”
“I wanted to be a soldier,” Ruthven said. This time his wry smile was real, but it was directed at his naive former self. “I thought I ought to learn what being a soldier was really about. I wanted to see the elephant, if you know the term.”
“Seeing the elephant,” had been used by soldiers as a euphemism for battle from a very long time back. It might even be as old as “buying the farm,” a euphemism for death.
“And you certainly did,” Mahone said. “Your combat experience is a big plus.”
She met his eyes with every appearance of candor and said, “The Frisian Defense Forces haven’t fought a serious war since the Melpomene Emergency fifteen years ago. You knew that: that’s why you enlisted in Hammer’s Regiment when you wanted to see action. I know it too, and most importantly, the General Staff in Burcana knows it. The Defense Forces are willing to pay very well for the experience that our troops haven’t gotten directly.”
Mahone smiled like a porcelain doll, smooth and perfect, and held the folder out to Ruthven. “You bought that experience dearly, Captain,” she said. “Now’s the time to cash in on your investment.”
Ruthven winced. It was a tiny movement, but Mahone caught it.
“Hank?” she said, lowering the folder while keeping it still within reach. She stroked Ruthven’s thigh again and said, “Is it your leg?”
“Yeah,” Ruthven lied. “Look, Lisa …can you come back later? I want to, ah, stand up and walk around a bit, if that’s all right. By myself.”
“Of course, Hank,” Mahone said, smiling sympathetically. “I’ll leave these here and come by this evening. If you like you can just sign them and I’ll pick them up without bothering you if you’re asleep.”
Mahone set the folder upright on the table, between the pitcher and waterglass. Straightening she glanced, apparently by coincidence, at the electronic window.
“Thank the Lord you don’t have to go back to that, right?” she said. She smiled and swept gracefully out of the room.
Ruthven continued to lie on the bed for nearly a minute after the latch clicked. Then he got up slowly and walked to the window. He’d been thinking of Sergeant Rennie. That, not his leg, had made him wince.
They’d met on Atchafalaya. It’d been Ruthven’s first day in the field, and it was Trooper Rennie then….
“Here you go, Chief,” said the driver of the jeep that’d brought Ruthven from E Company headquarters. “Last stop this run.”
It was raining and well after local midnight. This sector was under blackout conditions; water running down the inside of Ruthven’s faceshield blurred his light-enhanced vision and dripped on the tip of his nose. It was cold, colder than he’d dreamed it got on Atchafalaya, and he was more alone than he’d ever before felt in his life.
“Sir, you gotta get out,” the driver said more forcefully. “I need t’ get back to Captain Dolgosh.”
Besides the jeep’s idling fans, the only sound in the forest was rain dripping into the puddles beneath the trees. Air-plants hung in sheets from high branches, twisting and shimmering in the downpour. Ruthven couldn’t see anything human in the landscape.
“Where do I …?” he said.
Two figures came out of the blurred darkness. “Hold here, Adkins,” one of them said. “I’ll be going back with you. It won’t be long.”
“If you say so, El-Tee,” the driver said. In bright contrast to his resigned agreement he added, “Hey, it’s captain now, right? That was sure good news, sir. Nobody deserved it more!”
“Lieutenant Ruthven?” the newcomer continued brusquely, ignoring the congratulations. He was built like a fireplug and his voice rasped. “I’m Lyauty, you’re taking E/1 over from me. I thought I’d stick around long enough to introduce you to your squad leaders.”
“Ah, thank you very much, Captain,” Ruthven said. He’d heard the man he was replacing’d been promoted to the command of Company K. That’d worried him because it meant Lyauty must be a good officer. How am I going to measure up?
The trooper who’d accompanied Lyauty was looking in the direction they’d come from, watching their backtrail. He had his right hand on the grip of his 2-cm weapon; the stubby iridium barrel was cradled in the crook of his left elbow. He hadn’t spoken.
“This your gear?” Lyauty said, reaching into the back of the jeep before Ruthven could forestall him. I thought the trooper would carry the duffle bag. “Via, Lieutenant! Is this all yours? We’re in forward positions here!”
“I, ah,” Ruthven said. “Well, clean uniforms, mostly. And, ah, some food items. And the assigned equipment, of course.”
The driver snickered. “He’s got his own auger, sir,” he said.
“Right,” said Lyauty in sudden harshness. “And you let him bring it. Well, Adkins, for that you can haul his bag over to the car. I’ve got Sellars on commo watch. The two of you sort it out. Leave him a proper field kit and I’ll take the rest back to Regiment with me to store.”
“Sorry, sir,” the driver muttered. “I shoulda said something.”
“Come along, Ruthven,” Lyauty said. “Sorry about the trail, but you’ll get used to it. Say, this is Trooper Rennie. I’ve got him assigned as my runner. You can make your own choice, of course, but I’d recommend you spend a few days getting the feel of the platoon before you start making changes.”