"Commander Task Force Erwin, please."
"Owensford here."
"Major, I will be on target in thirty minutes. In the meantime, I have an anomally in the last series of satellite photos. What look like . . . well, like ski tracks, sir."
"Ski tracks?"
"Cross-country skis." That had been the memory. Jerry and she had spent their honeymoon at Dayan's only winter resort, on one of the subpolar islands. "Moving-" she paused to reference. "From a position three-fifty kilometers north northwest of your present location almost like an arrow towards you, stretching for ten kilometers or so, then vanishing."
Silence for a long moment. "How many? And how long ago?"
"Impossible to say how many, sir. Could be anything from one hundred up, or more if some sort of vehicle on ski-shaped runners was used. How long depends on snow conditions, wet snow freezing and then being covered by fresh falls . . . that could mean anytime since the first firm snowfall."
Her fingers danced over the console. "Say any time in the last three weeks. But, sir, even if they all went to ground every time the satellite came over the horizon . . . very difficult to conceal, sir. The IR scanners and the imaging radar are much less affected by vegetation, and anyway, the leaves are off the trees."
"If the satellites are giving us the real data, lieutenant." Owensford's voice was harsh, and she felt a similar roughness in her own. On Tanith the Legion had fought rebel planters supported by the Bronson interests, and Bronson had suborned personnel in the governor's office, filtering the satellite data.
"But sir, we've had our own people in there from the day we landed! Senior lieutenant Swenson went over it all with a fine-toothed comb; nobody's been allowed past those computers and we take the datadump right into our own equipment."
"Still, it's interesting, isn't it, Lieutenant? And those computers aren't ROM-programmed like ours. It'll be even more interesting when you get some direct confirmation. Meanwhile, I'm not real confident about those satellite pictures. Owensford out."
Lefkowitz looked up. The other's faces were bent over their equipment, underlit by the soft blue light of the display screens, but she could see the sheen of sweat on one face, the lips of another moving in prayer. They had been nibbling at the outskirts of the Dales for a month, even landing and planting sensors; so far, not a hint of enemy activity. Suddenly that seemed a good deal less comforting.
"Relay link," she said.
"Green," the radio technician replied; the tiltrotors had a feedback-aimed link with a blimp circling at five thousand meters over Dodona, ample to keep them in line of sight even when doing nape-of-the-earth flying.
"Set for continuous download, all scanners." Everything the instruments took in would be blipped back to headquarters in Dodona in real time. "Pilot," she said, "I really think we should stay low, perhaps?" Even though they were staying well short of the action, south below the horizon from Task Force Wingate, along the path it had marched.
"Ma'am," the flyer said. "Everyone strap in."
There was a flurry of activity as the technicians secured themselves and anything loose. Silence for long minutes; Lefkowitz caught herself stealing glances out the nearest port. Moonlight traced lighter streaks across dark ploughland and pasture, where the long windbreaks of cypress and eucalyptus caught and shaded snow. The last lights of the widely scattered farmhouses dropped away as they left the settled lands around the confluence of the Eurotas and Rhyndakos. The pilot brought the plane lower still, until the tallest trees blurred by underneath so closely that they would have hit the undercarriage if it had not been retracted. There were trees in plenty, then open grassland where sleeping beasts-she thought they were cattle but could not be sure-fled in bawling panic as the dark quiet shape flashed by. Swamp, where puddles of water cast wind-riffled reflections from stars and moon.
"Relay from Major Owensford. Column's under attack, rocket and mortar fire."
Then they were over hills, the ground rising steadily. More snow appeared, first in patches and then as continuous cover; the reflected light made the night seem brighter. Forest showed black against the open ground, as if the hills were lumpy white pillows rising out of dark water. The lights of the base on the Rhyndakos showed; the tiltrotor circled, then swung north toward the chain of firebases.
"Passive sensors only," Lefkowitz said. "Warm up the IR scanner." A bit of a misnomer, since it was a liquid-nitrogen cooled superconductor in large part. "Prepare for pop-up manouver. Location, pilot."
"Coming up parallel with Task Force Erwin's column of march, one-ten klicks south."
"Major Owensford, I'm making my first run. Stand by."
"Standing by, Lieutenant," the cool voice replied.
"Pilot, now."
Debbie Lefkowitz keyed her own screen into the IR sensor. It had fairly sophisticated electronics, enough to throw a realistic 3-D map and pre-separate anything not the natural temperature of rock or vegetation. Data was pouring into the craft from the sensors with the column and in the firebases along the route, free of the suspect satellite link that lay between the Dales and the Legion's analysis computers back in Fort Plataia.
"Major, you've got about . . . two thousand hostiles in your immediate vicinity," she said, as the machines correlated the fragmentary input. "Grid references follow." And relay this back to Swenson, now!
A machine beeped at her. She looked at it and her stomach clenched.
"Major, I've got multiple readings south of your position. South of my position. Readings all around," she said. Calm, she told herself sternly. This was certainly more hands-on than headquarters duty, but needs must. If the Royalist line of march was a bent I, the troops-they must be troops-were two parallel lines flanking it on either side, with another bar in the north closing the C. This safe rear zone just became bandit country. The enemy below might not have stinger missiles and detection gear, but they probably did. "Permission to conduct direct scan."
"South-" Owensford began, then snapped: "Denied. Get low and get out of there, and do it now."
"Sir." Gravity sagged her into the seat as the pilot turned for home and rammed the throttles to full.
"We're getting out of here soonest," she said on the cockpit link. "Might as well take a look while we're leaving. Prepare for pop-up. Stand by for sidescan."
The rotors screamed as the engine-pods at the ends of the wings tilted, changing the propellors' angle of attack. The aircraft jerked upward as if pulled by a rubber band stretching down from orbit "Scanning . . . down!"
Another freight-elevator drop. "Major, troops, at least two thousand down here heavy weapons probable category follows-"
Alarms squealed. "Detection, detection, multiples, frequency-hoppers-"
"Jesus Christ missile signatures multiple launch-"
The pilot's voice overrode it, shouting to his copilot. "Flares and chaff, flares and chaff! Those are Skyhawks!"
The putputput of the decoys coughing out of the slots was lost in the scream of the airframe as the pilot looped, twisted and dove almost in the same instant. The cabin whirled around her. For a moment they were upside down and flying in the opposite direction to their course two seconds ealier, and she could see two livid streaks of fire pass through the space she had been occupying. One struck trees and exploded in a globe of magenta fire as they began to turn, but the other did not. "Shit, shit, shit, shit," the pilot cursed.
The Lord our God, the Lord is One- Lefkowitz found herself praying, for the first time since girlhood. Get the data stream out. Send everything we know. Nobody dies for nothing. Let them know what we saw. Lights flashed as the computers dumped their data.
The tiltrotor was below the nape of the earth now, threading its way through narrow passages between trees and rocks, flipping from one wingtip to the other with insane daring as the pilot stretched the machine to its limits. Inspired flying, and very nearly enough; the missile was barely within effective radius when the idiot-savant brain that guided it sensed its f
uel was nearly exhausted and detonated.
"Portside engine out, cutting fuel." The copilot's voice, metronome-steady. The aircraft lurched and turned sluggish, barely missed a hilltop.
"Starboard's losing power!" Both pilots' hands moved feverishly on the controls. "Something nicked the turbine casing, she's going to split. Shut it off, Mike, shut her down."
"I can't, we're too low-"
The plane surged upward, painfully, clawing for enough altitude to pick its landing-spot. The starboard engine's hum turned to a whining shriek that ended in an intolerable squeal of tortured synthetic and an explosion that sent the tiltrotor cartwheeling through the sky. Fragments of fiber-bound ceramic turbine blade sleeted through the walls of the aircraft, and lights and equipment shorted out in a flash of sparks and popping sounds and human screams, of fear or pain it was impossible to say. Lefkowitz felt something like a needle of cold fire rip down the length of one forearm.
They struck.
"The observation plane's down," Andy Lahr said. "Lefky bought us a lot of data. Still sending when she augured in."
"Dead?"
"Dunno. Went in from low altitude. Maybe not."
"What can we send to rescue her?" Owensford demanded.
"Not one damn thing. That area's crawling with hostiles. Which we know about only because of her, but they'll get to her long before we do."
"I see. Tell Mace. All right, let's see what she found out."
"It's a lot. One thing's certain, Major. The satellite data is thoroughly corrupted. We didn't get clue one of that force to the south, and it's far too damn big that we wouldn't have seen something."
"Right. Get me Jesus Alana."
"Alana here."
"Jesus, we've been snookered."
"Yes, sir, I'm following it."
"Got anything for me?"
"First cut analysis: your upper limit's blown away. The satellite hasn't been reporting properly, and we must ignore all its data. The conclusion is that we do not know what we're facing."
"How truly good," Owensford said. "What else?"
"They're trying for a giant Cannae."
"Hell, we knew that."
"Yes, sir, but they have more in place than you thought. We have been thoroughly deceived from the beginning. The satellite data were not merely incomplete, they were corrupted."
"How?"
"Someone is spending money like water," Alana said. "They have imported gear that we cannot afford, and people who can use it."
"People who didn't come off a BuReloc transport, that's for sure. OK, we have rich enemies off-planet. What do I do this morning? What's vulnerable?"
"The force to the south is not well organized," Alana said. "And they cannot be reliably in communication with their headquarters."
"Not in communication. But they're moving. So they're following a plan."
"Probably."
"OK. A giant Cannae, and they think it's working. I want to think about that. You flog hell out of the data and report when you have something. Out."
After the battle he'd have to send a report to Falkenberg. And a letter to Jerry Lefkowitz. But just now there were other things to worry about.
"Andy."
"Sir?"
"They want us to move into the jaws. We want them to think we're doing it. Have all the units out there keep up coded chatter, lots of message traffic." He typed furiously. "OPERATION RATFINK, VARIATION THREE. GET YOUR STAFF PEOPLE WORKING ON THAT."
"Senior Group Leader, we have confirmation, they're talking a lot," the headquarters comm sergeant said.
"Acknowledged." Niles grinned, and turned to the company commander. "Right on schedule. The Brotherhood troopers will be coming down there," Niles said quietly, pointing west and to his right as his left hand traced the line on the map. "Get as far upslope as you can, dig in, and hold them. You're going to be heavily outnumbered. Hold while you can, then pull out; but every minute counts."
"They'll have to come to us," the Company Leader said. "Can do, sir."
"Good man. Go to it."
That's G Company gone, the Englishman thought, as they headed into the trees.
A stiff price, but worth it. They had gambled heavily on Skilly's plan. Niles had argued that it was too complicated, and was ordered to stop being negative.
But it's working. It really is.
He had to trot to catch up with his headquarters squad; nobody was stopping now. The three remaining companies of Icepick were moving at better than a fast walk, through the thick snow-laded brush of the swale between the two Royalist forces; you could do that, with a little advance preparation of the ground and a great deal of training. Already past the skirmish at the minefield; he could hear the crackle of small-arms fire half a kilometer away to his left.
God, I hope the rocket batteries are still up. Enough of them, at least; the Royalist counterbattery fire had been better than expected. At least they seemed to have run out of whatever they'd used to support the SAS teams, those horribly accurate rockets. . . .
Violet spheres of light floated across the sky. Six lines of three on the main First RSI position. Another six on the Brotherhood battalion to his right, that ought to give them something to think about. Six more on the unit off on the enemy's western flank. They'll be out in the open. Should be taking heavy casualties, that will help George company. Then the crump of mortars and the rattle of small arms; the better part of four companies of Helots putting in their attack on the flanking unit right on the heels of the bombardment One hour thirty minutes to the satellite, he thought.
Group Icepick was nearly silent as it moved, only the crunch of feet through the snow and the hiss of the sleds. There were ten of those, each pulled by half a platoon, bending into their rope harnesses. The loads were covered by white sheeting that bid the lumpiness of mortars and heavy machine guns, recoilless rifles, boxes and crates. The men trotting silently through the forest undergrowth in platoon columns were heavily burdened as well, with loads of ammunition and rifle grenades, spare barrels and extra belts for the machine guns, light one-shot rockets in their fiberglass tubes, loops of det cord. They showed little strain and no confusion, only a hard intent concentration.
Well, Skilly was right, he thought; training to the point just short of foundering them was the only way.
There was a sudden burst of small-arms fire and shouting from just ahead and to the left.
"Report!" he snapped.
"Sir, First platoon, E Company, Cit's comin' down off the ridge. 'Bout a platoon of 'em, we're engaging."
Rotten luck, he thought. Still, you couldn't expect the enemy to cooperate with the plan. Act quickly.
"Kolnikov," he said, keying his circuit to the E Company leader. "Detach First and Third to me, you're in charge, get Icepick where it's going and fast, then set up. Headquarters platoon," he continued to the men around him, "Signalers and techs, accompany Company Leader Kolnikov until I rejoin you. The rest of you, follow me. Move!"
He angled to the left and increased his pace to a pounding lope, all he could manage in this gravity with what he was carrying. The men followed, and all down the column the pace picked up as the orders were relayed. There were no cleared lanes through the brush upslope, but his men wormed through it quickly enough; visibility dropped to five meters or less, and stray rounds began clipping through the branches unpleasantly close. Grenades were going off, and he could hear the hiss of the light rockets the guerillas carried. A glance at his wrist.
0300. One hour twenty minutes.
"Sutchukil here," a voice said in his ear as he went to one knee and waved the others past him. "The enemy aircraft is down."
"Good," Niles said. Intelligence would be interested, and the "consultants" were as eager as their stoneface training allowed to get their hands on Falkenberg's electronics. A prisoner would be a bonus too, although Legion people were said to be very stubborn. God, it's getting comfortable to think of fifteen things at once, I must getting used to this bu
siness. "Advise the nearest officer to send a patrol. Out."
"Wake her up."
A cold tingling over the surface of her skin, and Lieutenant Lefkowitz blinked her eyes open. She was lying against a packing crate, in a gully that was not quite a cave. There was a strip of faint light thirty meters up, where moonlight leaked through interlacing branches across the narrow slit in the stone, a little more from shaded blue-glow lanterns. Below the walls widened out, vanishing into darkness beyond. To her right the gully narrowed and made a dog-leg; that must be to the outside. Men were moving in and out; out with boxes and crates from the stacks along the walls-skis and sleds I knew it, that thing with the propellor must be a powered snowsled-and on the other side of the cave she could see the cots and medical equipment of a forward aid-station. Nobody in it yet, the medics standing around watching or helping with the work.
The air was cold enough to make her painfully conscious of the thinness of her khaki garrison uniform, and smelled of blood and medicines and gunoil and the mules stamping and snorting somewhere back in the darkness.
"She's awake." The voice was kneeling at her elbow; a woman in camouflage jacket and leather pants like all the rest she could see moving around, with corporal's stripes and a white capital M on the cuff. The shoulder flashes held nothing she recognized except a red = sign on a black circle.
"Fit to stand rigorous interrogation?" An officer, from his stance and sidearm; Asian, short and stocky-muscular. In the same uniform as the others, but without insignia, and he wore something that was either a long knife or a short sword in a curved laquered sheath at his side. She felt a slight chill as his eyes met hers. Complete disinterest, the way a tired man looked at flies.
The medic nodded. "Bruises, wrenched ankle, cut on the arm, slight chill, no concussion," she said, as she packed her equipment and headed back to the tent with the wounded.
"Stand her up."
Hands gripped her and wrenched her to her feet; she bit the inside of her mouth to keep from crying out at the pain in her head. The enemy officer turned to a bank of communications equipment, an odd mixture of modern-looking modules and primitive locally manufactured boxes. Very odd. None of the advanced equipment are models I could place. Functions, yes, but not these plain black boxes without maker's marks or even the slightly bulky squared-off look of milspec. His hands skipped across a console, and a printer spat hardcopy. He held it up, looked at her, nodded and raised a microphone.
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