by Rick Shelley
"They got enough work without me hanging around. Never mind my arm. I can do my job, much as anyone ever lets me do it anymore. Nothing wrong with my mouth, or my brain," Phip said. "I'm not about to sit on my ass and let you do everything. And if it comes to it, I can shoot better one-handed than half these kids can with both. Any way you slice it, I can do you more good here than there. Besides, I've had my rest, more than I need."
Lon stared at Phip, clenching his teeth against the impulse to order his friend back to the field hospital. "Just what did the medtechs tell you?" he asked finally. "How much recovery time do that shoulder and arm need? Straight out."
"Only minor nerve damage—pinched, not severed. I've got a little tingling in the fingers. The bone is pretty well repaired—eighty percent, anyway. Another eight to ten hours and I'll be fully functional. And the big fight won't come before then, will it? I've been listening in on as much as I could the last hour or so, since they pulled me out of the tube."
"The big fight won't come before then if things go the way I hope they will," Lon said. He did not question how Phip had managed to replace his damaged helmet electronics. There had undoubtedly been casualties whose helmets had survived. "There's a chance the New Spartans will force the issue before then, though. They might be better off if they do."
"That smaller force waited until it was too late to try to break out," Phip said. "Any reason to think that the main force will play it any smarter?"
"They can see what happened playing it that way," Lon replied. "That might be enough to make their commander decide to try something different. I would if the tables were turned."
Phip snorted. "If the tables had been turned, you'd have attacked soon as it got dark last night, anything to keep the enemy from playing it his way. Maybe charged in right after blowing mat stupid hill down on top of them."
Lon shook his head. "I don't know what I'd have done if I had the other hand in this. I don't even want to guess. Whatever seemed to offer the best chance of holding out until help arrived, I expect. Right now, running looks to offer more hope for the New Spartans than sitting still, or turning and attacking us."
"How seriously you figure they take their name?" Phip asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I got to thinking about that fight the old Spartans had, back on Earth, that one we talked about."
"Thermopylae?"
"Yeah, three hundred men standing off an army of umpteen thousands, fighting to the last man."
"I don't think we have to worry about that," Lon said. "The New Spartans are mercenaries, not maniacs. No professional is going to accept a contract that requires a last stand." Lon shook his head. 'There's no future in it." Phip's groan at the pun made Lon feel better—about both of them.
Lon kept Phip close through the afternoon, and made certain that Jeremy Howell and the members of his security detachment knew to look after the lead sergeant, no matter how much he tried to discourage the attention. As much as he could without being obvious about it, Lon kept a close eye on Phip as well, noting that the limp disappeared within a half hour even though they were hiking across rough ground. Not long after that, Lon noticed Phip flexing the fingers of his left hand, repeatedly making a fist, testing the arm as far as the sling and straps would allow. Phip kept the faceplate of his helmet down, so Lon could not see if he was in any discomfort.
It was after 1430 hours when Lon finally got a count on the number of New Spartans who had been captured by 15th Regiment. Three hundred twenty had been taken, seventy-three of them wounded. Jensen's men also had counted eighty-three enemy bodies at the site of their last firefight and the attempted breakout. Twenty-four Dirigenters had died in the fight, and there were forty wounded men, about a third needing time in trauma tubes.
A few minutes later the two companies from the EDF opened fire on the main New Spartan force, tying them down for twenty minutes before withdrawing to better positions—now right in front of the enemy, due east of their lead companies. The New Spartans made a few attempts to find a way out to the northeast, but 2nd of the 7th was in the way there.
"I think we've finally got them cornered," Lon told Phip when a report from Vel Osterman said that the New Spartans were setting up a defensive perimeter and digging in. "They don't have anywhere to go but through us now."
"If they realize that, they're liable to try it before we get everyone in place," Phip replied. "Right after sunset at the latest, I'd guess."
"If they wait until sunset, it'll be too late," Lon said, glancing at the sky. "Four hours from now we'll have all our people in place, a tight ring around them."
"But that gives them four hours to rest, while we're still humping around," Phip said, "/'m okay. I had all that rest in the tube, but most of our men haven't had the luxury. They've started to drag their butts along the ground."
I know, Lon thought. "We'll keep the New Spartans' minds occupied, enough to keep them from getting much rest, at least. I'm going to try to give our people most of the night to try for some sleep, plan on going in about ninety minutes before sunrise if the New Spartans don't do something sooner." Go in with everything we can muster. Maybe it's not smart to put everything on one roll of the dice, but we don't have many choices if we want to hope to avoid facing them and all the reinforcements coming toward us.
The New Spartans had no real advantage in the terrain they had been forced to defend. They were on a gradual slope, the ground rising to the east, not to another ridge but just into rolling prairie with waist-high grass and scattered stands of trees and brush, and the Dirigenters and Elysians were above them as well as below—but never by much. There was more soil and less stone away from the hills, though, which meant that the New Spartans were able to dig in easily.
"It's going to be a bloody mess on both sides," Phip said as he and Lon surveyed the enemy positions before sunset, passing powered binoculars back and forth between them. Lon had set up his command post a little more than two miles from the nearest point on the enemy line, on the slope leading down from the last line of hills, near the edge of a thick copse of trees that draped like weeping willows on Earth. The CP was a little higher than the New Spartans, dug in and camouflaged as well as the men of the regimental headquarters staff could manage. A few trees had been felled. Slit trenches and foxholes had been dug, with the dirt piled in front of them. Nearly all of the Dirigenter and Elysian troops were in position, surrounding the enemy, and Lon had already put his people on half-and-half watches, to allow everyone to get some sleep before the battle. Hopefully.
"I'm afraid you're right," Lon said, sighing softly. "Dark will make it a little easier, but not enough to suit me." He glanced at the sky. 'Too bad we don't have the low cloud cover and rain any longer. That would have gotten rid of the starlight and moonlight"
"I hope we can do most of the job before we have to get close enough for those needle guns of theirs to be effective," Phip said. "Someone brought a captured needle gun and its ammo by the hospital before I left Those slivers of metal are heavier than you'd believe possible. Must be depleted uranium." He shook his head. "It'd be better yet if we could hang way back and just use our beamers to thin 'em out. We've got more energy weapons than they do, I think. Or more power packs for the beamer rifles we do have. I've been checking around. We haven't lost anyone to a beamer in almost twenty-four hours."
New medical supplies had been received, along with ammunition and meal packs. There had been no losses, except for some of the delicate medical stores that had been jarred by too-rough landings. The New Spartans in orbit had not even tried to intercept the small rockets. Nor had they attempted to resupply their own troops.
"They have to be getting short on ammunition for all their weapons," Lon said after a lengthy silence. "Probably short of food as well. They haven't had any fresh supplies in since we hit the ground, and I doubt that they carried more than a couple of days' worth before we showed up."
Phip shrugged. "They had almost three day
s to build up their stockpiles on the ground between the time we came out of Q-space and when we reached attack orbit. Maybe they are short of food, but they won't starve before their compatriots arrive, even if their stomachs growl a lot. But if they haven't got bullets to feed their rifles, why the hell don't they surrender now and get it over with? Save a lot of lives."
"Maybe their commander still believes in miracles," Lon said. "And maybe he's waiting to see if we've got the balls to try to finish them off. There's a chance that once we start to press the attack they might show the white flag in a hurry."
"So who still believes in miracles?" Phip asked. "I thought you got cured of wishful thinking a couple of decades ago."
Lon laughed as he turned his head to look at Phip. "I did give up believing in miracles, but then you went and got married and I had to reconsider."
Phip shook his head, but he was grinning. "Hard to argue with that reasoning," he said. "Why don't you have a meal, then get some sleep? I'll keep my eyes open and let you know if anything important happens."
Lon hesitated. "I'm not really hungry, but I'd better try to get a little sleep," he conceded. Just the mention of sleep forced a yawn from his throat. "At least a couple of hours."
'Try, hell," Phip said. "If you can't get to sleep without it, put a four-hour patch on. We're neither of us kids. We need our sleep. I had mine in a tube, and that's better than sleep, but you've been on the go forever. You've got to have your head clear when the fight starts. Go on, use a patch. Anything happens, I'll pull it and put a stim-patch on to jerk you awake."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
When Lon woke and opened his eyes, the timeline on his visor display informed him that it was 0225 hours—almost two-thirty in the morning. He took several slow breaths to help get rid of the slight tension headache that a sleep patch almost always left him with. Almost two-thirty; I got the full four hours, he thought. That means nothing has gone wrong. That was a relief, dampened when he next realized that it also meant that nothing had gone exceptionally well either—the New Spartans had not surrendered to spare themselves the bloodletting of battle. I guess that was too much to hope for. If they were going to surrender that easily, they would have done it earlier. Lon could hear no gunfire, which also spoke loudly to the peacefulness of the moment. He stretched cautiously, almost as if he were afraid that someone would notice. He clicked his radio receiver on and turned to the channel that gave him the running commentary from CIC on Peregrine. With no activity on the ground, the talk was no longer constant. There was a pause of nearly twenty seconds before someone in CIC started repeating the latest summary. Nothing new on the ground. No fighting at the moment between us and the New Spartan cruiser. The new fleet continues on course toward us; no change in their estimated time of arrival; they're still at least thirty-one hours away. We'll repeat this message in five minutes. The dull tones of the sailor reading the report reinforced the bland nature of the message. There seemed to be a "ho-hum" behind each phrase, as if he had difficulty staying awake through it.
Several blinks. A more expansive stretch. Lon looked around him, subconsciously ignoring the slight greenish tinge that the infrared portion of his night-vision system gave to everything. That was so old-hat that it was extremely rare when he actually noticed. He saw Phip's figure about ten feet away, and knew it was Phip mostly by the way he sat, his head forward just a little, the sight movements of body and limbs. The sling was gone from his left arm. Lon needed a few seconds before he noticed its absence.
"Did Doc Norman approve that, or did you do it on your own?" Lon asked, lifting his faceplate when Phip turned to look at him. The night turned dark without the night-vision gear.
"I gave it all the time he told me to," Phip said. He only lifted his faceplate far enough to expose his mouth. Lon pulled his back down, to the same extent. "Feels okay, really, just about one hundred percent." Phip made a series of movements with the arm, flexing and stretching all the muscles, exercising the joints. "See? No pain, just the least little stiffness from having it immobilized so long."
"Any news I should know about?" Lon asked. He opened his canteen and took a long sip of water. That and several deep breaths banished the last traces of his headache.
"Nothing but routine, far as I know. Everyone's where they're supposed to be, getting what rest they can, ready to go when the time comes, or whenever the New Spartans decide to do something." He paused. "Whichever comes first, I guess. The skipper of Peregrine wants you to call him. I suspect he wants to gripe about how many Shrikes you want to pull down to support this operation."
"I suspect you're right. He'd prefer keeping all of them to defend our ships, even though he's got numerical superiority over the New Spartan fighters. Now, if there's nothing else I need to know about, it's time for you to shut your eyes and get a little rest before the attack."
"To tell the truth, I've already dozed a couple of times. Jerry and me been taking turns, making sure one of us is always awake and close by, listening to the radio and watching. Things are getting too close. Even if I could get to sleep, it'd be time to wake back up so soon it's not worth the trouble."
"Worth it or not, take the trouble," Lon said. "Humor me. You've already caused me enough worry for one contract. Besides, your medical nanobugs will work that much better while you're asleep, and I can see that arm and shoulder aren't quite all the way back yet. I'm awake and alert. Soon as I get a bite to eat, I'm going to be busy on the radio."
Lon spent nearly ten minutes talking with Kurt Thorsen, the captain of Peregrine. Thorsen made only pro forma objections—though he repeated them several times—to the use of four Shrike II fighters to provide close air support. They would rotate in and out, two at a time, minimizing the time when the troops on the ground would be without air cover. As each pair of fighters returned to the ships, they would be rearmed while another pair went out… at least as long as the Dirigenter ships did not come under heavy attack. Four shuttles would come in under the cover of the first Shrikes, carrying ammunition for the heavy-weapons battalions. Lon decided to do that at the same time as the ground attack, rather than wait and try to slip shuttles in after the battle, before the next New Spartan fleet got close enough to interfere. If this fight gets close, maybe they'll make the difference, he reasoned. One fight instead of two.
Most of the conversation concerned various contingency plans, including the possibility of sending Agamemnon and Odysseus out to intercept the incoming New Spartan ships as far away from Elysium as possible—too far out for them to launch shuttles and reinforcing troops.
"We can only risk that if we win the fight down here," Lon concluded… to Thorsen's obvious relief. Any further debate on the topic could wait until later.
"Everything depends on how you people do this morning," Thorsen said. "I wish there was more we could do to help, but we've got our own problems up here, as you know."
"Be ready to launch an MR back to Diligent once we know how the fight goes down here," Lon said near the end of the conversation. "If it goes badly for us, you may have to make the reports." I may not be here to make them. He tried not to think about that, but the thought kept sneaking past his defenses.
One by one, Lon spoke with Fal Jensen, Tefford Ives, and each battalion commander in both regiments. He asked each about unit strength and readiness, and gave the commanders personal briefings for the upcoming operation, asking each man if he had any suggestions—and giving each suggestion his full consideration. Still, the process did not take all that long—no more than half an hour altogether. There was, now, time for that. By the time Lon had finished, the last sleeping men were being wakened to give them time for breakfast and whatever reflections might come in the last hour before battle.
Lon thought about calling Junior, to have at least a few words with him before the shooting started, maybe the last words they would ever be able to exchange. The temptation to indulge himself was strong, but—in the end—he did not. I can't fuss over him
like a mother hen, Lon thought. Let him keep his mind clear for what's coming. Don't complicate things for him. He doesn't think about this the way you do. He's a Dirigenter by birth, not a transplanted Earther. But it could not stop Lon from thinking about Junior, and the rest of his family, almost until it was time to give the order to start the assault against the New Spartans. Images drifted through Lon's mind, words and pictures, mostly of times when Junior was very small. And Angie, more when she was a toddler than now, almost a grown woman. Only briefly did Lon think about the baby who was coming, the third child… and the chance that he might not get home to ever see him or her.
Don't think about that, Lon told himself as sternly as he could. Even if this turns into a disaster, there's no reason why you won't get home. Sooner or later. That was one… courtesy one mercenary could expect from another. Prisoners would be repatriated eventually, though perhaps at a price. If the Corps lost the fight on Elysium—this one or a later battle with the New Spartan reinforcements—Lon might go home in disgrace, but there was every reason to believe that he would go home.
Sara. Lon mouthed the name silently, closing his eyes. He pictured his wife in his mind, imagining that she appeared farther along in her pregnancy than she was, seeing her as she had been just before she had delivered Angie, or Junior. She still looked almost that young, but Lon could see the differences in his mental image, vague overlays as through a lens whose focus was subtly changing… a few pounds, a few tiny wrinkles. I hope she's not worrying too much about us, Lon thought. She doesn't need that kind of stress while she's pregnant. But she would worry, though she always tried to hide it; that was the Dirigenter way. Two of us to worry about now, and out on the same mission. Lon shook his head and opened his eyes. I've been a Dirigenter for almost thirty years and I still don't have the instinct to treat this as just a job, with risks that have to be accepted. Another day at the office. Sara did not see those risks quite the same way Lon did, and Junior was even more… cavalier about them. How much is real and how much is pretense? Lon asked himself—as he had countless times over the years. Do they really see this so much differently, or is it only an act they're conditioned to from infancy?