by Rick Shelley
"Makes the tropics seem almost welcome," Carl said. ' 'At least we can count on some warning if West attacks.''
There had been occasional message rockets from Diligent—about one MR every three or four days. Lon had received two letters from Sara, long but with little real substance. Lon had also sent several letters to her, but neither of her letters mentioned any word from him, so he assumed that she had not received them when she wrote. Two days after the ultimatum from Aldrin West, an MR from Dirigent brought news that was even more welcome to Lon than
Sara's third letter—the first to mention one of his notes. Twelfth Regiment was coming.
"They should be overhead in about fifty-six hours," Captain Orlis said after telling his lieutenants and his lead sergeant. "They're already in system. Apparently they 284
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popped out of Q-space little more than six hours after the MR."
"West must know that they're in-sysiem as well," Lon noted.
"Probably," Orlis said with a shrug. "It's not quite so important now. Colonel Flowers said he will be delivering his ultimatum to the government of West this morning. 'Negotiate in good faith with East or else.' West refused to extend their deadline for us to leave the planet yesterday afternoon."
"Captain, there's no way we can enforce any peace between the governments here unless we're prepared to keep troops on Aldrin indefinitely," Carl said. "That's the weak point.
Sure, we can go home and say we'll be back if there are any breaches, but the month it would take for us to respond could be too much to make any difference."
"That's always been the case," Orlis said. "We have the reputation of the Corps, and the threat to return. Maybe we'll have to, even if there's no profit in it. But if we get them working together, making contacts instead of using those mountains as a wall between them, time ought to do the rest."
"They fight for long," Lon said, "the Confederation of Human Worlds might take an interest, see them as easy pickings. They won't have any independence at all left then. I'm surprised CHW hasn't tried to enforce sovereignty already."
"Captain, if it's going to be two and a half days before 12th Regiment is available, and Colonel Flowers is going to hit West over the head with his demands this morning, that's going to leave us particularly vulnerable for the next couple of days," Carl said. "They might well try to strike first."
"They might," Orlis agreed.
Lon sat in the trench with third platoon's second squad. He spent much of his days going from one group of men to the next, talking, sharing the latest news, answering the CAPTAIN
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inevitable questions. Second squad had rigged a camouflage tarp over the trench to shade them from the sun, but the tarp also cut down on the circulation of air. It was still hot, but bearable.
"It's coming, isn't it, Lieutenant?" Lance Corporal Gen Radnor, the assistant squad leader, asked. "We're finally going to have us a real fight here."
"I don't know about us, personally," Lon said. "We may be far enough away for now. But I think the rest of the regiment is likely to catch hell before 12th lands. After that, who knows?"
He shrugged. "Even with two regiments and all of East's armed forces, West could put up a hell of a fight. It depends on how determined they are. If there's only one government on Aldrin, they want it to be theirs, not some hybrid that forces them to share authority with East.
That's the only possible reason they could have for refusing to negotiate."
"This sure is nothing like any contract I've been on before," Phip Steesen said.
"I don't think it's like anything anyone in the Corps has been on," Dav Grott said. "It's peculiar, that's what it is. I know what we're trying to do, Lieutenant, and maybe it's all well and good, but it's still peculiar."
*'I won't argue with you, Dav," Lon said. "All we can do is follow orders and do everything we can to minimize the cost if fighting comes." Everyone knew he was not talking about money, but lives. The veterans had been with Lon on two expensive contracts, the kind no soldier liked to experience.
Dean Ericks started to say something, but Lon held up a hand to cut him off. Lon was receiving a call from Captain Orlis. He listened for a moment, said, "Yes, sir," then spoke to the squad.
"Got to go. I've got to accompany the captain on a run into Hope. Be back in a couple of hours. No slacking off. I don't think we're apt to get hit here, but I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time."
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They drove to Hope, just Lon and Matt Orlis. The captain drove, and he looked unusually somber. "It could get grim, Lon," Orlis said, shaking his head. "If we have a fight here, it's going to be something like the Corps hasn't faced in a couple of generations, a large-scale war with both sides up to the minute in weapons and tactics. It could go on for months, if not years."
"Years?" Lon asked, a little surprised.
"Like the big nationalist wars of Earth," Orlis said. "The Corps might have to bring in more regiments, and .. ." He stopped, shaking his head again. "It would be costly in people and money. If we get dragged in as a full participant, no one's going to be paying our way, and that's bad for business."
"You think it could really come to that, Captain?" Lon was as much surprised by Orlis's glum mood as by what he said.
Orlis took a deep breath and sighed. "Maybe I'm just not myself this morning, Lon, and we've been here so long that I had about convinced myself we wouldn't have any more fighting.
Yes, it could get that bad, but it probably won't. West might put up some sort of a fight, but I can't see them pushing it to the ultimate. Once they see that the result is going to go against them, I would think they would want to avoid weakening themselves any farther, keep whatever leverage they can for later. For all the posturing, they have to think about the future."
"That didn't always happen on Earth, Captain," Lon said—with some reluctance because he didn't want to contribute to Orlis's apparent depression. "We had wars where one or both sides insisted on an all-or-nothing result."
"This isn't Earth," Orlis said with force. "We've learned those lessons, over and over. It can't go that far here. It just can't.'' His vehemence seemed to help. While he did not end the drive with a smile and a whistle, at least his face looked normal—quietly confident.
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Hope also had been preparing for the possibility of more fighting. The town's defenses had been bolstered considerably. Strong points had been established at key points along the perimeter. Key buildings inside the town also had been strengthened. Trenches had been dug.
"Of course we helped them," Orlis said when Lon made a comment about it. "If things go bad, Hope is our fallback. That would give us a shorter perimeter to worry about, let us consolidate. Between 2nd Battalion and Hope's own defenders, we would present quite a formidable obstacle. Especially since we can count on air support."
Most of the grain in the fields had been harvested, the automatic machinery working overtime. If Hope faced a siege, its people would not worry about starving. Direct stores of food and the raw materials to keep food replicators working ensured that. Starvation, long the chief threat of a siege, had been negated by nanotechnology. Ammunition was far more likely to run short.
Major Esterling was waiting for the two officers. He had put aside dress uniforms. Now he wore camouflage battledress, like his men. Work was still going on in the town, with most of the civilian population helping.
"If trouble does come, we'll be as ready for it as humanly possible," Esterling said after an exchange of casual salutes.
"I'm sure you will," Captain Orlis said. "And if it is going to come, it might well be within the next two days, maybe even as early as tonight."
"You have news?"
"Colonel Flowers has delivered his ultimatum to West," Orlis said. "And our reinforcements are still two days out."
Esterling nodded thoughtfully. "Let's go inside, out of the
sun. We can be comfortable while we worry." He worked up a modest smile, but Lon could see that the major was worried—seriously worried.
The building they entered housed Hope's only pub. There were no customers in it. The woman behind the
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bar—she appeared to be in her early thirties but could easily have been much older—seemed glad to have company. Esterling ordered beer for himself and his guests.
"If West strikes," Esterling said after their beers arrived, "they'll strike here,"
"That's not the way our intelligence sees it," Orlis said. "Our other battalions are far more likely targets. They're closer to West's army, accessible. If West tried to strike here, we'd have plenty of warning, time to do serious damage to their transports before they could put men on the ground."
Esterling shook his head. "I hate to disagree, Captain, but I must. Certainly, the purely logical move would be for West to strike your other battalions, but this has never been an exercise in pure logic. Hope is a thorn in the side of Syracuse. As long as we're here they will insist on feeling violated. If they see trouble coming, such as your reinforcements, they will want—above everything else— to remove the thorn while they have a chance. No, if they attack anywhere, it will be here, with everything they can bring to bear."
Lon sipped his beer, watching the other two. For the first time Lon began to feel some doubt about the careful analysis provided by regiment and CIC, that the odds were overwhelming that West would strike at the nearer target, the battalions of 7th Regiment in the mountains between the colonies. The major lives here. He might have a better handle on what West will do than we do. Maybe our preparations weren 't a futile exercise.
"West doesn't have a town or a military base within seven hundred miles," Orlis said. "The only ground route goes through a bottleneck along the seacoast, and it would take a convoy twelve hours to get here that way. And if we see unusual air activity, we can have interceptors in before they can get here."
"I hope you're right, Captain, but I'11 wager two bottles of my best wine against your canteen of water that right at this minute West has troops within three hundred miles, out of sight, ready to strike. From that distance they could
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have shuttles up and down before your fighters could arrive."
Matt Orlis did hesitate—for about five seconds—before he took the bet.
He lost.
CIC ditf COMB up with a logical explanation—in hindsight. The nearest concentration of Wester soldiers was actually only 250 miles from Hope, Most had been there since before 7th Regiment reached Aldrin, and they had been reinforced and resupplied by sea. CIC
admitted to having seen several small ships within a hundred miles of the rendezvous, but had written them off as fishing trawlers or pleasure craft. Both colonies had taken to the sea, over generations. With a world that was more than 80 percent water, that was natural.
West's troops moved after sunset, using ground effect trucks concealed from the spy-eyes by extensive thermal shielding. The convoy spread out over a front that was several dozen miles across at one point, gradually narrowing as it approached Hope.
The trucks unloaded their troops two miles from the outermost electronic snoops. With four hours until first light, the Westers had plenty of time to move in on foot. Seven hundred miles to the north, several civilian air shut-ties suddenly changed course, turning south. They were on their new headings for several minutes before fleet CIC sounded an alarm. The squadron of Shrike fighters was put on alert but was not immediately dispatched. It was possible, if not
likely, that there was no sinister intent behind the sudden course changes. The shuttles were, after all, civilian. Seven minutes passed between the time of the course change and the time when the order was given for a pair of Shrikes to investigate each of the shuttles. Those seven minutes made the difference.
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West launched two squadrons of air defense fighters as soon as the mercenary craft started in. Coming from a series of unsuspected small landing strips no more than five hundred miles from Hope, West's fighters forced the Shrikes to divert. Military fighters were more important than civilian shuttles.
Five civilian shuttles landed and unloaded three hundred soldiers within four miles of Hope.
A hundred miles north, the two groups of fighter aircraft moved toward engagement. West launched military shuttles then, from farther away, burning on the most efficient trajectory to get through the danger zone before the Dirigentan fleet could launch more Shrikes.
Far to the northeast, West's army initiated a series of small firefights against the other battalions of 7th Regiment. More fighters rose from air bases within Aldrin West, heading into the mountains. Fleet CIC later determined that West had put every fighter it possessed into the air, striving for maximum effect... and for maximum confusion among their enemies.
In the latter, at least, they succeeded.
An alert whistle sounded in every battle helmet in 2nd Battalion before the first rockets were fired between air-craft. Lon had been asleep. His last watch had ended little more than an hour earlier. He had dropped off to sleep almost at once, near exhaustion, but the shrill call of the whistle coming from the speakers in the helmet next to his head was enough to shock him awake instantly. The few seconds of mental confusion that came with the rude awakening ended with something approaching total alertness. He pulled the helmet on before he reached for his
boots.
Reports on what was happening, and orders for the response, started coming through. The clerk in battalion headquarters kept his voice calm, showing no agitation or emotion.
Captain Orlis checked in with Lon as soon as there was a break in the action reports. Lon had his boots
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on by then and was getting up. He had the tent to himself. Carl Hoper had been out, on duty.
Lon passed orders to his platoon sergeants. The men of Alpha Company who had been asleep were already awake and moving to their posts. By the time Lon got to his station on the perimeter, every firing position was manned.
"It hits the fan now, right, Lieutenant?" Tebba Girana asked, sounding relieved that the waiting had ended.
"That's what it looks like," Lon said. "West pulled a good move. They've got at least two full battalions almost within spitting distance, and we didn't know they were coming until it was too late to intercept them." Esterling knew his enemy better than we did, he thought.
The fighting in the air started. There were exchanges of missiles, countered by defensive maneuvering and other measures. Fighters on both sides went down, often in shreds. Few aircraft got close enough to each other to use cannons. The additional West shuttles made it south without casualty.
Lon moved along the section of perimeter that his platoons were responsible for, talking with each squad. The enemy was still not close enough for the early-warning detectors to signal their approach. "If they take the straightest line to Hope, they'll either hit Charlie Company or go between us," Lon told his platoon sergeants. "If they're so damned intent on taking the town, they might try to move through without engaging us."
"We gonna sit still and let them do that?" Jorgen asked.
"No, Weil. If they try to go through we hit them from both sides, force them to stop and take notice." Those orders had just come from battalion headquarters. "We stop them, and die companies on me far side move to reinforce us."
The orders had come through quickly enough that Lon guessed that Colonel Black had been prepared for the contingency. Captain Orlis had passed along Major Ester-Ijng's fears about what West might do. Lon recalled the
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bet Oriis had made. Too bad. I would have liked another taste of Esterling 's best wine, Lon thought. He could not work up a smile to go with it.
Reports came of engag
ements in the mountains. West's attacks on the rest of 7th Regiment were clearly meant as a diversion. They were not being pressed in force. Four Shrikes that had been started on a vector to support Colonel Rowers' main force were diverted south to help defend Hope.
On the ground, West's soldiers moved toward Hope. They aimed for the center of the gap between Alpha and Charlie. But flanking units—platoon-strength, according to the first estimate—were sent against each of those mercenary companies.
"They want to keep us pinned down while the bulk of their troops move by," Lon told his sergeants after new orders came from Captain Orlis. "We stay put. First and second platoons are going out to try to slow down the penetration."
Electronic snoops sounded their warnings and transmitted video. Lon sampled those, looking at the skirmish line of West soldiers moving toward the company. "Get ready," he told his noncoms. "They're five hundred yards out. Have your beamers ready. Start sniping as soon as you've got clear targets." Each squad had one man armed with an energy weapon. Silent, those weapons could fell an enemy before he knew he was being targeted.
The most reliable marksman in each squad drew the long-distance killer.
Lon settled into firing position, with third platoon's second squad. For the moment it would not be necessary to have his men spread out to cover the half of the company perimeter that Carl Hoper's men were vacating to attack the enemy thrust. As long as we know where the enemy is and they don't try sliding around, we can stay put, Lon thought. He would keep a close eye on the enemy's movements, ready to order men to new positions if there seemed any possibility that West would try to flank them.
The platoon moving toward the camp stopped three
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hundred yards from the perimeter. They had started taking casualties and were ready to start returning fire. "They just want to keep us pinned down," Lon reminded his sergeants. "If they don't know that we've already got half our force out, so much the better. Let's keep them from moving any closer."
Lon started firing his own rifle, an occasional short burst, generally when he had a decent target. Put up enough fire that they don't suspect we 've cut our numbers in half until the others hit their main force. Then we 'II see what happens.