by Peter Grant
He paused, looking around. “You don’t have to give me an immediate answer. I’ll give you a day to think this over, along with all my other proposals. However, we’ve got to move fast, so don’t delay unduly.
“Next, I’ve been arranging food supplies from across the settled galaxy ever since we heard about the situation here. With what they just delivered, there are enough Bactrian supplies to last everyone on the planet for up to three months, but I’m sure you’re all tired of them by now.” Groans and nodding heads showed he was right. “I’ve got a ship only a few light years away, waiting for a message. She’ll bring fresh and much better-tasting ration packs, and more will follow. We’ll let the Bactrian prisoners eat what their planet has provided.” Cheers ran around the table. Dave couldn’t help smiling.
“Another vessel at the rendezvous will take orders to our other ships, and news of our success to our Embassy at the United Planets. I want you to select one or two of your number to go to Neue Helvetica aboard the courier ship. They’ll brief our Ambassador – Rusty Higgs, whom some of you will remember – and the Vice-President – my wife, Tamsin – about what’s happened here over the two years since we left, and make themselves available for press conferences in due course. Thereafter they’ll assist our Ambassador until we can get them back here. Pick articulate, presentable people who’ll make a good impression. I’ll send a couple of my people with them to describe the space combat that took back the system.
“I’ll send most of the officers of the Bactrian forces back there aboard the first ship, along with General Khan’s staff. That’ll deprive their units of most of their leaders. Their NCO’s can maintain order until they’re repatriated. I’ll allow General Khan and a small staff to stay here until the majority of them have left, at his request. We’ll begin setting up tented prison camps immediately, using the prisoners as a labor force. You’ll have to provide guards and a transport unit to shuttle supplies to and from the camps as needed. I’ll leave it to you to arrange that.”
“What about our own structure, Sir?” Tredegar asked. “Will you take over Brigadier-General Aldred’s position as Commanding Officer of Laredo’s armed forces?”
“No. We’re going to need three commanders. Vice-President Johns appointed me her successor as President Pro Tem before she died. I’ll retain that office, and also command our space defenses. In the latter capacity I’ll change my rank to acting Commodore, the Fleet equivalent of my present rank of acting Brigadier-General. I’ll promote you to acting Brigadier-General with immediate effect, reporting to the office of the President Pro Tem. You’ll command our armed forces planetside, continue their training, take over all the Bactrians’ equipment, and supervise the prisoners until they’ve been repatriated. We’ll need a third person to begin to re-establish our planetary administration, keeping whatever’s worth keeping from the Bactrians and discarding the rest, then deciding what parts of our pre-invasion infrastructure should be rebuilt and what should be replaced by something new. I nominate former Sergeant-Major Deacon for that job. He’s now a substantive Captain and acting Colonel. He’ll join us in a few days.” A rustle of recognition and amusement ran around the table.
“I want to begin training at least two thousand members of the Resistance as Spacers, up to five hundred at once, the rest over the remainder of this year and early next year. We’re not finished with Bactria, not by a long way. I don’t believe for a moment they’ll let matters rest as they are now. We’re going to have to discourage them the hard way from ever bothering us again.” A growl of angry, determined agreement came from his listeners.
“I think I have a way to keep them from interfering for the next few months, but as soon as the repatriation of prisoners has been completed they’ll be spoiling for a fight. We have to train our own people to first augment, then eventually replace the Gurkha spacers I’ve used up till now. I want you to ask for volunteers among your people. It’ll be brutally hard work under very high pressure. We can’t afford to cut them any slack. They’ll have to work faster, harder and smarter than ever before. I’m sure we’ll have more volunteers than we need, so choose the best among them with that in mind.”
“What about those Gurkhas, Sir?” Tredegar asked curiously. “You said you had a battalion with you.”
“I have a battalion of Gurkhas, but they’re all serving as Spacers. Most of them aren’t even here. That was a bluff, to give General Khan another reason to give up without a fight.” Another laugh ran around the table.
“It seems to have worked, Sir.”
“Yes – so far. There may be volunteer spacers joining us from other planets as well, but I can’t say for sure yet. Is there anything of immediate importance from your side?”
Those around the table shook their heads. Tredegar observed, “As you said, Sir, there’s going to be a mammoth amount of work for all of us for the next year or so, just to keep our heads above water. We’ll have to work out most of it as we go along. Let’s get the Bactrian prisoners sorted out, then we’ll take it from there.”
“Yes, we will. Let me have nominations for promotion as quickly as possible. We need proper command structures for your three battalions, under Brigadier-General Tredegar as the Laredo Army’s new General Officer in Command. All ranks will be temporary and in an acting capacity until confirmed – or otherwise – by our first elected Government. We’ll also have to account to that Government for our stewardship of the planet and its resources. Keep that firmly in mind at all times.”
~ ~ ~
Late that night Dave emerged from the temporary command center in a cluster of farm buildings, looked up at the stars, and breathed a long sigh. “There were times I thought I’d never see Laredo’s stars again,” he remarked.
“I guess it must have been difficult for you,” Tredegar said.
“Not half as difficult as it was for you here. Still, we’ve had our fair share of adventures off-planet. One day we’ll have to write a book about the Laredo War. There’ll be a lot to tell our children, to make sure they don’t forget what happened.”
“Probably more than one book. Your adventures off-planet are a story in themselves, judging by all you’ve told us.”
“Oh, you haven’t heard the half of it yet! We’ve been blessed with some powerful friends who helped us with a lot of money and even more technical help, but we’ve basically had to grab for the brass ring whenever we saw it and hope for the best.”
He looked soberly at his companion. “Be real clear about this, Paul. We’re on our beam ends financially. We took in close to two billion Neue Helvetica francs after Vice-President Johns was assassinated, and another half-billion or so in donations since we published the documentary and book about what Bactria did to Laredo. We’ve spent just about all of that, or committed it, to buy and equip our warships, train their crews, and buy the rations we need to keep this planet going for the next year or so. When word gets out about our success here, I expect another one to two billion francs in further donations over the next six months, but we can’t spend it all on fighting a war. We need as much as possible to help rebuild things here.
“What that means is that we have to finish this war within the next year, or find ourselves too broke to fight on. I’ll try to buy us short-term immunity from attack by bluffing Bactria about our capabilities. After that, once the prisoners are gone, we’re going to have to hit them as hard as we can. It’ll be a one-off, all-or-nothing strike. If we succeed, we’ll smash their threat and win the war. If we lose, it’ll drag on and they’ll likely be back with another invasion force in a few years. I don’t think we’ll be able to resist them at that point.”
Tredegar nodded slowly. “I hear you. I didn’t think about the financial side before, but I guess warships are a very expensive proposition.”
“You’ve no idea. Every missile they fire is like shooting thirty to forty million francs out of the tube. So far we’ve been very lucky to get our hands on a lower-cost solution, and I hope
to get more soon at Bactria’s expense, but we can’t afford to replace what we fire if we have to pay market prices. Same goes for our ships. We got a lot of help from the Lancastrian Commonwealth because they really want us to succeed, then form a defensive alliance with other small planets worried about facing something like a Bactrian invasion themselves. They’ve spent a lot of money and lives on United Planets missions to places like that. They reckon if we succeed, it’ll help reduce that burden in future, so they’re helping us out of their own self-interest. If we don’t succeed, that won’t continue – and without that sort of engineering and technical backup, we may as well give up right now. We could never afford to pay for it at commercial rates.”
“So how do you plan to hit Bactria?”
“I’ve got some ideas. I’ll refine them in consultation with some of the experts we’ve hired, then prepare a plan. It’ll be three to four months before we’ll have something we can discuss in detail. Meanwhile, there’s more than enough to do getting things sorted out here. You and Bill Deacon can focus on that. That’ll free me to worry about the space side of the fight.”
“Sooner you than me!”
Bactria: June 1 2852 GSC
MINISTRY OF WAR, SODIA
The War Council sat in stunned, incredulous silence as Lieutenant-Colonel Oxus gave her report. She concluded, “Brigadier-General Khan felt it his duty to remain with his troops on Termaz to do all he could for their well-being until the last of them is repatriated. He’s submitted a personal, eyes-only report to you, Your Majesty.” She took a data chip from her pocket and placed it on the table in front of the Satrap. “I don’t know what’s in it – he said it was confidential.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant-Colonel,” Rostam said automatically, face pale. “I’ll read it later.”
“There’s one more thing, Your Majesty. I don’t know enough about space warfare to be sure of what we saw, but before General Khan’s staff were put aboard the freighter, we were taken to Brigadier-General Carson’s flagship. He showed us a cargo hold that contained a lot of big gray boxes with a sort of dome on top. He claimed they were nuclear space mines, and warned that if Bactria made any attempt to reinvade Termaz, or our ships entered its space without permission, or we failed to repatriate all of our prisoners within six months, he’d send some of his ships to sow them throughout our system and shut down our space-based industries. He could see that we didn’t understand, so he told us to ask our Navy. He said they’d know what he was talking about.”
The Satrap glanced at Rear-Admiral Stasanor. “Admiral?”
The Admiral was tapping rapidly at a keyboard. “Just a moment, please, Your Majesty…” A holographic display came to life at the bottom of the conference table. “Look at that, please, Lieutenant-Colonel Oxus. Is that what you saw aboard his flagship?”
She peered at the display. It showed a tall rectangular structure topped with a hemisphere. “Yes, Sir – that, or something almost identical to it. The stenciled letters on the side seem to be very similar as well.”
Stasanor’s mouth twisted bitterly. “Your Majesty, it looks as if laser cannon weren’t all that the rebels bought from Marano. That’s an image from their catalog of weapons for sale. It’s their standard model of nuclear space mine. We use some of them ourselves in our orbital defenses. How many do you think you saw, Colonel?”
“I’d say probably a hundred or thereabouts, Sir.”
“And that’s aboard only one ship. We know he’s got at least two operational, and probably more that haven’t reached Termaz yet. If each of them has the same number of mines, they can cripple us with a single pass through our system. Those things are stealthy – almost impossible to pick up by radar or lidar except at point-blank range – and they have their own gravitic drive units, to move slowly from one point to another. No matter how hard we tried, we could never be sure we’d swept them all up – and we’d lose many of our minesweeping ships to them in the process.”
“But our agents didn’t uncover any record of such a sale,” SS Lieutenant-General Gedrosia objected. “As far as we know, the rebels only bought laser cannon – defensive weapons. I don’t see how Marano could have sold them offensive weapons they’d be sure to use against us. I mean, we’re a much bigger customer than the rebels. They wouldn’t want to offend us.”
“Which may be why your agents found no trace of the transaction,” Stasanor pointed out. “Marano would have done its utmost to keep it under wraps, to prevent us finding out about it. Even if we challenge them about it, they’ll just deny it; and without one of those mines in our hands, with its serial numbers intact, we’ve got no hard evidence. What’s more, those mines are much more affordable than missiles – no more than a couple of million Neue Helvetica francs apiece. They’re well within the rebels’ budget, if the figures we’ve discussed for that are correct.”
The Satrap suddenly slapped his forehead in anguished realization. “Oh, hell! What about our big weapons order from Marano? We were going to pay for it in part with an exclusive ten-year asteroid mining concession in the Termaz system. Will Marano find out about this disaster in time to stop the shipment before it leaves?”
There was an even more agonized silence for a moment, broken by the Rear-Admiral. “I don’t think so, Your Majesty. Their timetable was to have everything loaded by today. There may be a couple of days’ delay – there often is with a big order like this – but the ship’s due to leave by not later than the seventh. I don’t see how news of the loss of Termaz can reach them before then. For a start, where would they learn about it? We haven’t announced anything yet, and according to Lieutenant-Colonel Oxus, General Khan ordered the freighter’s crew and everyone aboard to say nothing and release no information until she’d reported to you. The rebels will no doubt announce it at the United Planets, but they can’t do that until they send word there. That’ll take them another week or two from now, I should think.”
“Yes, thank heaven! We’re going to keep everyone aboard that ship and clamp down on any release of information until we can figure out how to handle this.”
Stasanor nodded. “Once the Marano delivery ship is in deep space, it’ll be out of communication. As long as we clamp down on the news here until it arrives, so it doesn’t hear anything on our news broadcasts or from our people, we can take delivery of the shipment and sign the concessions as if nothing had happened. Those in the Termaz system will be worthless until we take it back, of course, but we can worry about that later. The important thing is to get our hands on those patrol craft and missiles. Without them, we’ll have a much harder time stopping the rebels if they come to call.”
“Very well. Lieutenant-Colonel Oxus, please wait outside in the anteroom. I’ll have orders for you in a short while.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” She snapped to attention, held her brace for a moment, then walked to the door and let herself out.
As soon as she’d gone Lieutenant-General Demetrias growled, “That fool Khan should have fought, dammit! He’d have taken heavy casualties, sure enough, but he had the best part of four thousand combat troops to face three thousand rebels and a Gurkha battalion – if that actually exists; we’ve seen no evidence yet to prove that it does. He could have fought a force like that on even terms.”
“And what about the kinetic weapons the rebels threatened to deploy from orbit?” Rear-Admiral Stasanor asked acidly. “You saw the vid of the destruction of Mount Sinclair. If I’d been there, that would have been more than enough to convince me that there was no point in resistance. He had no way of avoiding or evading them except to keep moving incessantly. The moment one of his units stopped to rest or eat or refuel, it would have been destroyed.”
“Then he should have done that! Better to lose his army than allow it to be captured without firing a shot! He’s disgraced us!”
“Enough, gentlemen.” The Satrap’s voice was suddenly very tired. “There’s no point in arguing about what might have happened or should hav
e happened. We’ve got to deal with what did happen, and the problems facing us as a result. Admiral, can we repatriate that many people within six months?”
“I’ll have to run it past our logistics people, Your Majesty. We’ve lost our three armed merchant cruisers, which will make it difficult, but the rebels sent back our freighter, which helps. If we charter three or four merchant freighters and fit personnel pods in a couple of their holds, I think we can do it. We still have most of the pods we used to invade Termaz several years ago – they’re in orbital storage, and can be reactivated. Brigadier-General Khan estimated that we’d have to lift up to forty thousand people. If we hot-bunk every berth, and cram in as many as possible sleeping on mattresses on the floor, we can lift three to four thousand in a single trip; so ten to twelve trips ought to do it. They won’t be comfortable, but that’s not our priority right now.”
“Very well. Begin making preparations, please, and find out what ships are available for charter. If our space freight lines won’t cooperate, I’ll issue requisition orders for them.” He rubbed his eyes. He’d been woken in the small hours of the morning with the news of the ship’s arrival, and hadn’t had any sleep since then.
“Gentlemen, we face an unprecedented crisis. I’m not going to put forward proposals on how to deal with it yet, because the implications are so staggering I don’t think any of us have any idea what the long-term effects are likely to be. Please begin that assessment in terms of your own areas of responsibility. We’ll reconvene this meeting tomorrow morning, at which time you should each be prepared to offer preliminary proposals for action. Meanwhile, the news of the loss of Termaz is strictly embargoed. You may not discuss it with anyone, even your staff members. If you require their assistance to develop your proposals, use as few as possible and put it to them as if this is a snap war game scenario. Admiral Stasanor, please ensure that the freighter maintains radio silence and doesn’t allow any of her passengers to communicate with anyone.”