by Rick Shelley
Left hand on belt controls. Right hand on weapon. A lanyard made certain that no one would lose his weapon on the jump. At worst, it might dangle a few centimeters out of reach.
The jump plan was, relatively, simple. The men of the 13th were to free-fall until they reached 150 meters, with their belts on the lowest setting, partially to keep the speed of descent from getting too high but mostly to keep heads up and feet down. A buzzer in the helmet warned the wearer when it was time to increase power to the antigrav units, one click at a time. Save most of the deceleration for the last three or four seconds of the drop. If you worked it properly, you would hit the ground with hardly any jolt at all, ready to move forward, or to drop to the ground for cover—unless you misjudged your descent badly enough to run the batteries dry before you reached the ground. That had been a significant danger with the Desperes belts. That was why they had never been used in large-scale operations. But the greater power of the batteries in the new Corey model was expected to—almost—totally eliminate that hazard.
Once on the ground, the infantry of the 13th was to secure a landing zone for their heavy equipment and for the other units, the ones who were riding all of the way in on shuttles.
Echo Company's section of the drop zone was in a rocky waste area five kilometers west of the edge of the Schlinal base designated Site Alpha in the attack plans, one hundred kilometers north of the southernmost tip of Tamkailo's southern continent, near the east coast.
Joe Baerclau searched the ground around the drop zone as carefully as he could during the descent, looking for enemy soldiers or emplacements. Anything he could spot from the air might save him, and his men, when they landed. Although there were no firm numbers on how many Schlinal troops were stationed on Tamkailo, the estimates had ranged from twenty-five thousand to four times that. Even in a best case scenario, the Accord was going to be outnumbered five to two. Joe had never accepted best case scenarios. Reality always seemed to favor the opposite.
The best he could say for the drop zone was that it looked too rough for enemy armor to operate in it. From above, it looked as if coarse stone had been laid in a bed of cement. Using the ranging sights in his visor, Joe estimated that the rocks ran from forty centimeters to two meters in diameter, mostly with half to two-thirds embedded below the surface. The rocks covered an area perhaps twenty kilometers in diameter.
In the last hundred meters, Joe started adjusting the angle of his drop to set down on a low, relatively flat, space he had spotted. The belt was not infinitely adjustable. The direction of thrust could only be altered by five degrees from vertical. For a second, Joe tried spreading his arms to present more surface to the light breeze, working to get more lateral distance than he could with the belt alone. Not enough work had been done with the belts for there to be any "official" doctrine on that.
It worked well enough that Joe almost overshot the target he had set for himself. For the last second, he pulled himself almost into a ball, drawing up his legs and holding his arms close to his body. He worked the thrust of his belt, feathering in to a perfectly gentle landing. Hitting the ground was softer than stepping from one stair down to the next.
Joe's perfect landing was spoiled when his feet slid out from under him and he fell—heavily—on his ass. The rocks were covered by a thin mossy growth that was more slippery than water-covered ice. The fall knocked the breath from Joe's lungs. He banged the back of his helmet on the rock. The padding in his helmet was enough to prevent injury, but there were still a few seconds of confusion, enough time for virtually all of the first drop team to hit the ground. Nearly everyone fell, some with more force than Joe had.
"Watch it," he said, belatedly. "This moss is murder."
Joe didn't try to get to his feet. Standing up was the wrong posture for an infantryman in most cases anyway. He slid a little more as he rolled over onto his stomach, all of the way to the bottom of the slight depression. This stuff is going to be a real pain, he thought. At least there was no incoming fire yet, no apparent reaction to the landing.
"Talk to me," Joe said over his link to his squad leaders. He tried crawling on all fours, looking to get to the top of the depression. It was slow going. It was almost impossible to get any traction on the moss.
"Who greased the ground?" Ezra Frain asked. "How the hell we supposed to move on this?"
"Carefully," Joe replied. "You have any jump casualties?"
There was only a short pause before Ezra said, "Nothing that'll slow anybody down. We've all got bruises, though."
"I've got one man with a badly twisted ankle," Sergeant Low Gerrent of second squad reported. "Medic's patching him now."
"Third squad's okay," Sauv Degtree said.
"So's fourth," Frank Symes added. "Nothing serious, anyway."
"Pull the men in around me," Joe said. "Try to find an efficient way to move over this moss." Then he switched channels.
"Second platoon's mostly okay," he reported to the first sergeant.
"Mostly?" Izzy Walker asked.
"One twisted ankle, being attended to. Other than that, nothing but minor stuff from slipping on this carpet. Didn't anybody know about that?"
"Guess not," Walker said. "I'm hearing about it now, though, from all over."
"What next?" Joe asked.
"Just get your men together until we sort things out. Nobody's shooting at us yet. I'll be back to you in a couple of minutes."
Joe pulled out his belt knife then and started scraping at the moss. It was no more than a centimeter thick, with bare rock beneath it. Before First Sergeant Walker called back, Joe had cleared enough moss to get to the top of the depression so that he could look out toward the enemy buildings to the east. He didn't see any signs of Heggies coming out.
"Still following the plan," Walker said. "We're to move east and establish a perimeter, hold until the rest of the force lands. Take your platoon due east about a kilometer and take up positions. First platoon to your right, third to the left."
"Where are they bringing in the heavy stuff?" Joe asked.
"Farther west."
"I hope they've got something besides this moss to set down on."
Walker didn't bother to reply.
Joe relayed the orders to squad leaders and deployed the platoon. The footing remained treacherous. The slick moss seemed to cover every square centimeter of the rocks.
It'll make everyone keep their heads down anyway, Joe thought. The troopers scuttled along on hands and knees. Where there was any significant slope, they had to move on bellies, scraping away moss to get at the rock below in the worst places. It didn't take long for men to discover that the rock below the moss was extremely hot to the touch, almost scorching, even so soon after dawn. The moss itself did not feel particularly hot. Somehow, it absorbed sunlight and passed the heat on to the rock layer without holding much of it.
Joe stayed close to first squad, the squad he had led before he got the entire platoon. Even after more than a year as platoon sergeant, Joe still thought of first squad as "his." He knew the men in the other three squads better now, but that had not yet completely broken old habits. The men of first squad viewed it as a mixed blessing.
All eight infantry companies were on the ground now, spread over the western section of the rocky area and beyond. Shuttles were beginning to bring in the Havocs and support vans for the 13th's Wasps and Havocs. Other shuttles were bringing in the engineers and their equipment. The 8th SAT and one of the light infantry regiments were landing at separate locations to assist in taking Site Alpha.
Everybody rides but us, Joe thought.
The men of Echo Company had no chance to set up a defensive perimeter once they had covered the first kilometer of rock. New orders came through. They were to move another four kilometers east, closer to the enemy.
Crossing five kilometers of the slippery rocks was painfully slow. Long before Joe had covered the first kilometer, his knees were scraped raw beneath his battle fatigues. His elbow
s and hands were also cut and scraped. Every muscle in his body ached. The forty kilos of gear he carried felt like a ton.
Echo was too far from the Schlinal depot to be in range of most small arms fire. Wire couldn't begin to reach. But there were clearly a few snipers with rifles that could strike at more than five kilometers.
"Keep down," Joe warned. "Those aren't mosquitoes whizzing around."
Second platoon suffered no casualties from the light sniper fire, but one man in third platoon was hit below his visor. The neck wound ripped the man's carotid artery. Before a medic could get to him, the man was dead.
After consulting with the first sergeant, Joe called a break for his men. Then he just flopped, cheek against the moss, while he dragged in several deep breaths.
Can't get enough air, he thought, uncertain whether the slight difference between Tamkailo's atmosphere and those he was familiar with could be that noticeable. All in my head maybe, he acknowledged.
After a moment, he rolled onto his side, almost on his back (his pack prevented him from getting fully supine). He lifted his helmet visor just long enough to wipe sweat from his face. The perspiration had been pouring into his eyes almost from the start of this crawl, stinging, burning.
Off in the distance, he could see aircraft fighting, more than a dozen planes. I hope our guys keep 'em busy, he thought. We'd be easy pickings here. The rocks might give decent cover against enemy rifle fire, but a strafing airplane would mow through them.
"Let's get moving again," he said over his link to the platoon's squad leaders. "We're too exposed here."
—|—
Zel sent three of his men to get fresh batteries and munitions as soon as he received word that their support vans were on the ground. He didn't want to take a chance that the entire flight would have to land at once. For ten or fifteen minutes, they would be shorthanded, but they would never have to concede the air to the enemy. The dogfight had been going on for twenty minutes—an eternity. Zel knew that Blue Flight had been lucky to have lost only one plane so far, though even one loss hurt. Finally, he had received a call from Frank Verannen. He was alive but had broken both legs. The bottom of the escape pod had been crushed by the explosion that destroyed his Wasp. Frank was still in the pod, on the ground, unable to move. At least no Heggies had come hunting for him yet.
In order to conserve ammunition, Zel had adopted a new tactic. He would approach a Boem as close as possible, then flip his Wasp end for end in order to use his rear-mounted cannons. Those were loaded strictly with armor-piercing rounds, meant solely for air-to-air use. They were intended as a deterrent, something to protect the previously vulnerable tail of the Wasp, but Zel's maneuver turned the cannons into an offensive weapon. The other pilots of Blue Flight quickly copied the tactic. The Hegemony's Boems had no rear guns.
Blue Flight was still outnumbered, more than ever once Zel sent planes in for servicing, but the Schlinal pilots never exploited their advantage. Most kept breaking away from the dogfight, apparently obeying orders to try to contest the infantry landings. Blue Flight didn't bother chasing them. There were other Wasp flights waiting, and after the first few minutes there would be mudders with shoulder-operated rockets waiting for Boems to appear. Not one of the Schlinal pilots managed to strike against the landings.
Twenty-seven minutes after launching his first pair of rockets, Zel scored his ninth kill of the battle with his last missile. With no more than ten seconds of 25mm ammunition left, he started looking for the three Wasps he had sent in for servicing. The rookies left with him had to be even closer to empty than he was. It took a pilot time—combat time—to learn how to stretch his ammunition. Zel finally used the radio, and heard that the three were on their way back, throttles to the stops.
Zel didn't wait. He ordered the flyers still with him to break contact and head in for servicing.
—|—
The 13th's four batteries of Havoc 205mm self-propelled artillery had as many new men as the air wing. Afghan Battery had lost five of its six guns in its last campaign, and the other three had all suffered at least 50 percent casualties. Afghan, Basset, Corgi, and Dingo: the dog names for the batteries were a play on words deriving from a line penned by William Shakespeare thousands of years before, "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war."
The crew of Basset two had remained the same for more than two years. They had had one Havoc destroyed under them without any of them suffering a serious injury. The commander was Gunnery Sergeant Eustace Ponks. The other three men—driver Simon Kilgore, gunner Karl Mennem, and loader Jimmy Ysinde—were all privates. They considered themselves to be the best gun crew in the 13th—and the 13th's artillery unit the best in the ADF. After all of the time they had worked together, their claim was not totally without merit.
Contrary to standing orders, they had landed on Tamkailo with their first round loaded, and Karl had the engines running before the shuttle pilot announced that they were on the ground and opened the cargo hatch.
Although the slick moss that covered the rocky area where most of the 13th's infantry had landed would not have bothered tracked artillery pieces and support vans, that area was too rough for other vehicles to operate. Landing just to the west, the artillery had more level ground. The nearer half of the Schlinal depot and camp was just within the range of the Havocs' guns, and there were avenues to the north and south that would permit them to get close enough to bring the entire enemy base under fire.
"Get us out and bear off to the left," Eustace ordered as soon as the cargo ramp was down. "Let's not waste any time."
Under the best of circumstances, a Havoc did not accelerate with any great dispatch, but Karl gave the twin engines as much throttle as the treads could handle. If the deck of the cargo shuttle suffered minor damage from the speed of the departing howitzer, it wouldn't be the first time.
"Basset two ready for action," Eustace reported to the battery commander as soon as he saw that Basset one was also out of its shuttle.
"Ponks, I've got a personal message for you from the colonel," Captain Ritchey said.
"Sir?" Ponks asked.
"He wants me to thank you and your crew for volunteering to stay behind if we come up short one shuttle because some careless crew damaged it on landing."
"I don't know what you're talking about, sir," Ponks managed. "We're strictly by the manual here."
Ritchey sighed over the radio. "I ought to at least make you take the round out of the can you stuck in there while we were still in the air."
"We would never violate SOP like that, sir," Ponks said, beginning to wonder if the Havocs had been modified to allow the battery commander to snoop.
"Never mind, Ponks." Ritchey paused for no more than two seconds before he said, "We're still following the original plan. We go north, then east. And we wait for all of the dogs to get out before we start firing. Unless we come under hostile fire first."
"Yes, sir." After closing his link to Ritchey, Ponks switched to the crew channel and whispered, "I think he's got us bugged."
"You're gonna have to quit calling the old man names, I guess," Simon said with a short laugh. "You'll never get that extra rocker for your stripes."
"Who wants another rocker?" Ponks said, as if he didn't. "The headaches ain't worth another twenty Corders a month."
CHAPTER THREE
Rank offered no protection against the slippery moss of the drop zone. Like virtually every man who jumped with him, Colonel Van Stossen fell as soon as his feet touched the ground. Both feet went out from under him and he landed on his butt, hard. For more than a minute, he could do nothing but sit there, glassy-eyed, scarcely registering his surroundings.
"You all right, sir?" the sergeant who commanded the headquarters security detachment asked. Vince Cumminhow scrambled toward the colonel on all fours. He also had fallen, but had managed to break his fall. He had jammed his left thumb in the process, but that was too minor an injury to worry about.
Stossen no
dded slowly. "I'm okay, Vin. Just had the air knocked out of me." He would never admit to the rather considerable ache in his seat or the headache that accompanied it. He blinked several times, trying to eliminate the sudden double vision. "What is this stuff?" He dragged his fingertips over the rust-colored growth.
"Some kind of moss, I think, sir," Cumminhow said. "A little slimy."
Stossen took time to look all of the way around a circle. His headquarters staff had, as always, landed in two separate groups several hundred meters apart, to make certain that no single enemy action or accident could completely cut off the 13th's leadership. Dezo Parks and the rest would join the colonel as quickly as they could now that everyone was on the ground.
"This stuff's going to play hell with the schedule," Stossen muttered as he tried to get to his feet. After several false starts, he gave up for the time being. "Let's see if that red stuff over there offers better footing." The colonel and his companions had landed—after jumping on belts—within fifty meters of the western border of the rocks.
"Has to be better than whatever this is," Cumminhow said.
Stossen gave no further thought to dignity. He scampered along on hands and knees just as the others were. He needed ten minutes to get clear of the moss. The hard red clay was hot, but at least it offered purchase for feet.
"Such an inviting-looking drop zone," Stossen muttered. He looked back over the extensive field of moss-covered rocks. "No wonder the Heggies didn't bother to defend it. They must know that no one can stand on that junk."
"I just wish we had known about it," Major Bal Kenneck, Stossen's intelligence officer, said as he walked up to the colonel.
"Couldn't tell without putting people down," Stossen said. He shook his head and turned to Kenneck. "You have anything for me yet?"
"Not much, sir. The only enemy activity has been pretty much limited to a few Boems. We're bringing in our heavy stuff already. But the Heggies are going to have plenty of time to get set to meet our mudders. Slow as that moss makes everything, it'll take a couple of hours to get our lines close enough to engage."