Minutegirls

by George Phillies

  "I see," Rohan said. Actually, I do not see, and that is one of the stranger accounts of the War in Viet Nam that I have ever heard.

  "The present Americans have only weak land forces. They have people who play at being soldiers. They have girls playing games in their brothers' clothing. They appear to train very little and not very hard. When faced with real warriors, men who are the elite representatives of the will of the working masses, they will crumble like a sand castle overtopped by high waves," Marshal Tsien said.

  Rohan asked himself if Tsien actually believed his own words. Those girl soldiers Tsien ridiculed had beaten the FEU's finest, defeating European efforts to support a progressive administration within the United States. This time the girls had had a century and a half to train, and had the benefit of secure rear areas. "I would of course be interested in those details you would wish to share about the plans of your patriotic volunteers. With respect to StarFleet support, the President has already shared with Chairman Fu our economic and military data. We can and will deploy overwhelming force to protect your volunteers," Rohan promised.

  "I believe that we are in agreement on all terms, and that Marshal Wu and your aide can discuss the timing questions. Is this correct?" Marshal Tsien asked.

  "Indeed. And I have the authorizations of the President, the Chancellor, and the High Commissioner to commit the Union to this plan," Rohan answered. He allowed himself a smile. He was on the verge of achieving what generations of his predecessors had failed to accomplish, namely moving concrete steps closer to the final solution to the American Challenge.

  "In that case, there are some details of our plan in which you might be interested," Tsien said. "We have a variety of demonstrations for the other stops on your trip. If you would not mind making a few alterations in your itinerary, to coincide with local festivals, you will even be able to watch the first direct action. Of course, this is your vacation, so we will leave the two of you with generous amounts of time for other activities." Tsien smiled knowingly. His visitors doubtless understood that every moment of every foreigner's visit was carefully monitored by the People's Special Police. Fortunately, this knowledge had not inhibited his guests. Such inhibitions sometimes led to less relaxed discussions. Rohan nodded his agreement.

  "Note that there are large areas of the American border in which the front line forces are provided not by real soldiers but by..." Tsien gestured at a wall display, hoping his guests found the images as amusing as he did. "These pictures were taken using a 30m telescope with adaptive optics. This is the yearly parade at Concord, where we see modern military machines like jet aircraft, horse artillery, tanks, musketeers, and of course Girl Scouts, girls buried under considerably more equipment than I would have thought an American woman could carry for the distance of the parade. Of course, none of this is of any military significance.

  "However, they actually have some of these girls watching parts of our border. These will be our first targets. And for their reaction reserves, we have provided several surprises, notably..."

  COMMAND POST #37

  WEST OF THE HARBIN DEMILITARIZED ZONE

  MANCHURIA, CHINA

  2327 HOURS CT 17 JULY 2174

  "Good evening, Comrade Fleet Admiral." The General commanding the command post snapped Rohan a sharp salute, which Rohan returned in kind.

  "Good evening, General Chang." The Chinese saluted the man, not the uniform. If he were now 'Comrade Fleet Admiral', Rohan thought, relations had improved dramatically. The Chinese might still be prickly if he returned the 'comrade' modifier.

  "I trust you had a pleasant dinner," General Chang said. "We have arranged accommodations for you and your aide for two days at the local hot pools, accommodations we hope you will find more pleasing than those you had originally reserved. The records will show that the original rooms were unfortunately unavailable, and that this change was with our humble apologies."

  Another sharp elevator descent brought Rohan and Villiers to a brightly lit series of headquarters rooms. Rohan was organizing mental notes for Beyerlein. The Chinese were far fonder of underground installations than Beyerlein had proposed. They seemed to be deeper, too. At least twice, the distinctive popping of the ears said they were far underground. When he returned to Paris, one of his implants would reveal how many energy screens they had passed through. Beyerlein had advised him that Chinese screens were less backwards than Chinese computer technology. To judge from the interactive displays he was being shown, that left a lot of room for Chinese screens to be behind Union technology.

  "And if the Comrade Admiral and Comrade Fleet Captain would take seats in the overhead row, I will be able to bring up the whole show for you," said General Chang. To Beyerlein's surprise, Chang showed every indication of knowing how to run his own equipment. In Greater Europe, technical matters were left to the other ranks: Senior officers were properly trained as managers of the battle committee process.

  "As you see, the weather is auspicious." External cameras showed drenching rain. "The Americans are very fond of remote detectors to find infiltrators, and this weather is almost as good as a blizzard for defeating them. In some ways it is better…there are no footprints in the snow. Our active jamming will begin very shortly, just as it does every night that it rains. And then our patriotic volunteers -- you met Lieutenant Li this morning, just before he was voluntarily transferred to the volunteer forces -- will begin their activities."

  Beyerlein watched carefully. He glanced at his companion. Genevieve appeared to be equally attentive. In this light it would not be obvious that the adoptive optics in her Fifth-Republic-Reproduction eyeglasses let her read instrument labels over the General's shoulders.

  "I also have a map with overlays," Chang said. Contour lines and color codes appeared on the main screen. "Our men will leave the demilitarized zone and enter Occupied China along this line," blue hashes appeared on the screen, "which is somewhat shielded from the view of known American sensors. We'll be using remote projected holograph traces -- very faint -- and infiltrated seismic generators to give the impression that the night is a bit noisy. Then our men will infiltrate around the expected first line of outposts and their cantonment -- those are the circles -- set ambush positions for the reaction force, and attack the cantonment from the rear."

  "If I may be permitted a question, General Chang?" Villiers asked.

  "Certainly, Comrade Fleet Captain," the General answered.

  "Your infiltration path stays much closer to one of the posts than the other, rather than passing midway in between. If I were commanding a starship, I might have done things a bit differently," she said.

  "Ah, yes. This is a fundamental difference between space fleets and infantry. Active detectors lose sensitivity as the fourth power of the distance, so in space maximum range is best." Rohan was surprised to feel Villiers' knee nudge him. General Chang must have said something important that he had missed. "Passive detectors lose as the second power. Hence detectors are long-ranged, and 'down the middle' is an obvious trap. Our volunteers stay on a steep slope, out of direct line of sight of that watchpost. After all, the Americans are girls, not real men, and will be hiding in their shelter so they won't get their hair wet."

  "Thank you for the explanation, General. My training focused on fleet tactics," Genevieve said. She squeezed Rohan's hand again, firmly. Rohan smiled blandly. She had had extensive ground combat training. What was she seeing?

  "The whole frontier is not mined or saturated with detectors?" Rohan asked. "I admire the bravery of your men for walking into defensive positions like this."

  "The frontier is too long for saturation defenses," Chang said. "Half the year detectors would get buried under snow. The North American southern border, far shorter, more sensitive, and easier to cover, is extensively laced with automatic defences, or so say our revolutionary Mexican colleagues. Here they have two-man posts every 200 or 300 meters, a platoon cantonment every two or three kilometers, perhaps a kilometer
back, and reaction reserves 4 or 5 kilometers behind that. They don't take the threat seriously. In some areas, there are private homes within a kilometer of the border. Those areas we will avoid until it is time to escalate."

  Scarlet points of light began drifting across the screen. "Now it begins," Chang said. "The locations are estimated. We have the advantage that we know what our jammers are doing, but even so our men are supposed to be as challenging to find as possible."

  "If it is not a secret," Rohan asked, "Are the men on their own? Is there a command structure? You've been most gracious to show us this, but if you have other duties to carry out during this event we are content to be led through by someone more junior."

  "You are most considerate," Chang answered. "Our volunteers' arrangements are with each other and the patriotic leadership in Beijing, but I'm not in that chain of command. All I do is watch. Of course, if the American Imperialist Running Dogs decide to retaliate by returning the blow struck against them by Chinese patriots, we are entirely ready to meet them. The Division responsible for covering this part of the border is at maximum alert. Corps and Army staffs are watching. However, our patriotic volunteers are not in my chain of command. If asked by the Azores Truce Commissioners, I can honestly testify under a verifier that no member of the PLA had anything to do with this attack, and in fact I spent the evening entertaining an old comrade and a beautiful young woman."

  "General Chang," Villiers said, "you have the heart of a Frenchman. A revolutionary Frenchman, of course."

  "The Comrade Fleet Captain is most kind," he answered. "But now matters are about to become interesting, because our men should be approaching the narrowest part of their passage through the front. We have no direct contact. There are other choices. They could trail an optical cable behind them, but American robots could find that. We will use radio nanobursts later when coordination is needed." Chang continued his well rehearsed presentation, some of which even corresponded to what was happening on the ground.

  FRONTIER OBSERVATION LINE

  TRAINING BATTALION, BELLA ABZUG BRIGADE

  SOUTH HARBIN STATE PARK

  HARBIN, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  July 18, 2174, 1:13 AM HLT

  "Perfection Queen, Wonderchick here. Approaching military crest." Wonderchick barely whispered, the microphone against to her neck catching her voice, filtering for clarity, and forwarding up the optical line back to 2-A. Heavy rain drummed against her ultracamou and dripped off into the grass and mud. Visibility, enhanced or not, visible or IR or UV, was close to zero.

  "Wonderchick, 2-A acknowledges. Still can't localize what's in the ravine. Filters keep rejecting a line source down the creek," answered Perfection Queen. "Smart Blond is at the knob, ready for flanking support."

  "Going down," Wonderchick answered. From here in, she'd be the dead-silent intelligent mule carrying better sensors. Once upon a time, someone would have sent in a UAV. Under modern conditions, UAVs were mostly easy targets for Junior Girl Guides. The treaty said no fliers, robots, or crawlers within two miles of the border. That treaty was followed. She rolled slowly over the edge and began her downslope crawl. Perfection Queen began sending Smart Blond updates, her words a hum in Wonderchick's bonephone.

  She went down the slope, step and halfstep following each other, carefully avoiding any cadence that might reveal her presence to seismic sensors. The night was dark as pitch. Finally she was close to the bottom, close enough to hear the water burbling in the stream, close enough she might spot something moving along the creek bed with naked eye. Passive detectors insisted that bed was empty, that no one was there. Reconstruction from fixed sensors, painted in faint red traces on the inside of her goggles, remained confused.

  Something was running up the background noise. A person? Chinese random jamming? There was something down here, but even right on top of it the something remained invisible. She began working forward. Then she realized why the signals from the creek bed were so elusive. She froze. A touch of her glove pad fed her idea back to 2-A. Marching up the creek bed was really obvious, after all.

  There was a slight break in the rain. Her guess of ChiComm positions was suddenly confirmed, in spades. They were all around her, hugging the steepest slopes above the flood plain.

  TROOP CANTONMENT HEADQUARTERS

  DEBORAH TROOP, ESTHER-3-FIRST, BELLA ABZUG BRIGADE

  SOUTH HARBIN STATE PARK

  HARBIN, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  July 18, 2174, 1:24 AM HLT

  "Oh, grelk," Perfection Queen's whisper came through the overhead speakers. "She just armed everything she's got, down to her Vixen and Taifuns." Iconlists by Wonderchick's location designator had just shifted from a single green point -- personal gun loaded, on safety -- to a half-dozen scarlet swirls: Personal gun armed at full auto. Grenade launcher armed. Vixen AT rocket armed. Satchel charges armed. Taifun recoilless antipersonnel weapons armed.

  "That is why you carry live ammunition, after all," Cadet Troop Leader Monica Schumacher said blandly. She grated her teeth. Bilateral tactical comms sometimes went a bit overboard at passing information to people who might need it. "Wonderchick, this is Troop, what is the issue?" Schumacher asked, trusting the servile to pass her words to the girl on the ground.

  Silence.

  "Signals glitch?" Schumacher asked.

  "IM DOWN + FROZEN. HAD TO BRNG UP GLOVPAD," Wonderchick answered. The letters scrolled slowly onto the screen. "SIX CHICOM PASS 5 YD L AND R MY POSITION. COUNTING AND SCANNING." Schumacher had a flash of comprehension. Wonderchick -- Rachel Carter Goldsmith, she remembered -- was wearing a total adaptive ultracamou cloak, was from the environmental icons lying in mud and a half-foot of water in the pouring rain, the water providing an ideal heat dump for her ultracamou, and didn't dare speak or move with the enemy so close. She was hearing through her bonephone, intrinsically inaudible at a distance. Her combat gloves had an internal keypad, through which she slowly typed messages without moving a fraction of an inch.

  "WE ALMOST RAN INTO EACH OTHER. THEY JUST KEEP COMING, NO SIGN THEY SEE ME. I COUNT TWO DOZEN SO FAR. CAN'T SEE THE FAR END OF THEIR FORMATION."

  Schumacher shouted into her mike. "D Troop, fall out, full gear and weapons! This is not a drill! ChiComm infiltrators at Post 2-A. Signals, notify Cadre to pass up the line. All posts, look sharp, you may be getting company." The distant sound of a bugle rang through Quarters.

  "Wonderchick, Smart Blonde here," came another voice through the speakers. "I'm at the hill crest, ready to support. I've acquired them, but have only inertial on you. Perfection Queen is left of outpost, covering flank."

  Schumacher relaxed very slightly. 2-A had done exactly the right things, down to bailing out of their warm, dry, and undoubtedly targeted by the ChiComms bunker. Across the line, other observation groups were doing the same thing. She would have to follow their example, by and by, but Cantonment was a distance back and had perimeter defenses. Besides, backup comms were really second-rate. She'd stay here as long as possible. "Signals, pass everything up to cadre," she directed.

  COMMAND POST #37

  WEST OF THE HARBIN DEMILITARIZED ZONE

  MANCHURIA, CHINA

  0221 HOURS CT 18 JULY 2174

  "By the standards of star fleets, my men hardly move at all," General Chang observed dryly. "But this is a very rapid infiltration, and we are now signaled that they are in position."

  "My ships may travel faster, General, but the wait feels just as long," Rohan said, sipping at the tea one of the General's aides had prepared.

  "Do these infiltrations sometimes take much longer?" Villiers asked.

  "Hours. In a snowstorm, several days, though that was to a greater depth," General Chang answered. He stopped short, considering that perhaps he had told his guests a bit more than he intended.

  "The Americans don't seem to be aware of your presence," she said.

  "They are almost blind. From historical experience, our men are not noticed. When they are -- w
ell, they were using backwards Chinese navigational equipment, and took a wrong turn. We humbly apologize. They accept our apologies. If the Americans tried this against our positions, we would have caught them instantly, before they had more than set foot on our territory." The General's voice bespoke complete self-assurance.

  The screen flickered, new points of light appearing. "That's the signal. We have three men behind each of their bunkers, a half dozen masking the front of their cantonment, two dozen in the rear for the surprise attack, and two dozen along the road. After we wipe out the outposts and cantonment, we wait for and ambush the reserves, then retreat swiftly."

  "There's the signal for the attack." Cameras pointing across the border showed distant flashes like lightning. "Our men are recording images. These may take a few minutes to reach us. We will also hear their transmissions."

  Rohan felt Villiers' hand at the back of his neck. Was she playing the role of vacationer, or did she find the scene erotic?

  "Here we go," said General Chang. Multiple voices were heard on the receiver. "The assault teams hit each of the American bunkers with armor-piercing rockets. There's an image on screen three. Teams are going in. You can hear personal weapons on continuous autofire as the men advance. The same is happening at the cantonment. Their buildings have armor, but not screens. The cantonment has a ring of fire positions, barracks and stores inside. They're partially buried, so we hit the exits. And that was the 'unsuccessful' attack on the third outpost. The armor piercing rockets missed by plan. The automatic fire raking the position is from long range. That position lived to call for help. But the reaction force will race to the girls' rescues, straight into our ambush.