by Rick Shelley
The Wester advance against Hope slowed, then stopped with the leading line nearly two hundred yards from the outer defenses. A series of land mines, planted days before, was detonated, one or two at a time, catching the attackers. The Westers turned then and concentrated their fire on Bravo Company behind them, forcing the mercenaries to stop moving in.
"Okay, we're going to slide in a little closer," Captain Orlis announced. "We want to get within two hundred yards of their flank, put more pressure on them."
Lon acknowledged the change of orders with something approaching relief. Sitting on the sidelines was hard on the nerves. Maybe they could help end the fight quickly.
The move was done slowly, on stomachs. No one wanted to alert the Westers prematurely.
Lon kept an eye on the range-finder on his helmet's head-up display. If they got within two hundred yards undetected, the gunfire they would be able to add to the fray would be devastating. With bullets coming in from three sides, the Westers would have to surrender or die.
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They were spotted eighty yards short of their goal. The Westers turned mortars and rifles against Alpha Company. For a few minutes the enemy seemed to concentrate exclusively on them, until Alpha had to stop. The men started to scrape out dirt to give themselves a little cover, while returning the enemy's fire.
"There's been a breakout on the other side of Hope," Captain Orlis informed Lon and Alpha's noncoms. "A battalion of the enemy broke through the line Charlie and Delta had around them. It looks like they're coming our way."
"We'd best take care of this batch in a hurry then, hadn't we?" Lon asked. "So we can get ready for the others?"
"It would be nice," Orlis agreed, "but Bravo makes the push. We just He here and do what we can."
The range was long but not impossible. Lon had his men improve their cover. All anyone could do was scrape out a little dirt and pile it in front for a few inches of protection. Most of the enemy fire was high anyway. But enough came in at the proper height to cause casualties. The medics stayed busy.
It was the garrison of Hope that had the best vantage. Behind barricades and makeshift walls, they had a few feet of altitude, letting them fire down into the enemy. Lon looked toward Hope, then to the east, where Bravo and the new arrivals from 3rd Battalion were again trying to edge closer. They'll have to stop eventually, Lon thought, before they get close enough to start taking friendly fire.
Lon opened his mapboard and looked over the area, trying to make sense of the scattered deployments of Westers and mercenaries. Both were fragmented, dispersed on all four sides of Hope. Only the garrison of Hope presented a unified body, and they were in the center, at (he focus of the battle. The militia did not have .helmets with electronics that could be traced by CIC and displayed on the mapboard. But the rest of the troops 'couki be tracked. Different-colored blips represented mer-250
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cenaries, Esterling's troops, and the Westers. With the scale on the mapboard set so Lon could see the entire battlefield at once, some of the different-colored blips were so close together that they appeared to be in the same location.
"A hell of a way to run a war," Lon mumbled as he adjusted the map scale to focus on the
nearest threats. If the Westers just south of Alpha turned and came toward them, it might be rough. Alpha would be outnumbered five to one—not counting the mercenaries from Bravo and 3rd Battalion who would, Lon hoped, be hot on the tail of the Westers. He scrolled the view on his mapboard around Hope slowly, looking for movement by the other contingents of the Wester army. There was one force on the south, another on the west. Both were moving around the fixed barricades of Hope, looking for either a weak point in the town's defenses or a chance to consolidate.
That's new,,Lon thought. The last time he had looked, the Westers had been trying to force their way straight into Hope. Now everyone was moving. And Dirigenters were moving with the enemy, chasing, for the most part, held back by barrages of mortar fire. Lon's perusal was interrupted by soft words from Captain Orlis over the company's all-hands channel.
"Mind your front. They're moving our way."
Lon flipped his mapboard shut and slid it into the pocket designed for it on the leg of his battledress as he searched the front. The Westers were definitely coming toward Alpha, but they were moving slowly, still a disciplined unit even though they were facing enemy fire on three sides. They stayed low, crawling, fire and maneuver tactics as practiced as anything the mercenaries were capable of.
' 'Get the grenadiers ready as soon as the Westers come in range," Lon told his platoon sergeants. "We might not have mortars, but RPGs ought to slow them down." And thin them out, he thought. Weil and Tebba gave terse acknowledgments. They probably had the men alerted already, Lon realized. It was rare when he thought of CAPTAIN
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something before his senior noncoms, both of whom had more than five times his length of service in the DMC.
"There's about a battalion right in front of us," Lon said, still on the channel that connected him to the sergeants. "We can't expect them to just fall apart because it's us they come up against. They're good, maybe as good as we are."
Neither sergeant replied to that. Captain Orlis came online again, to tell Lon that 3rd Battalion was the only reinforcement they could expect until 12th Regiment landed. "And that won't be until sunset tomorrow, it looks like," Orlis added. "Until then we're on our own." /
already anticipated that, Lon thought. Colonel Flowers had to keep enough troops with him.
Unless they could break everyone out, he had to retain the firepower to hold off the enemy in the mountains.
Lon wiggled his body side to side a little, squirming the dirt, looking for even a fraction of an inch of ^additional cover. The Westers had closed to within two hundred yards, and they had skirmishers concentrating on ^Alpha's positions. They know where we are, Lon thought, started listening for the whine of mortar bombs, ex-pecting them. Dreading them.
When they came, it was a sudden storm, three or four •mortars working in concert, launching bombs as quickly "as the gunners could load the tubes. The aim was still 'tpoor. The mortarmen were setting up, lobbing a few rounds, then moving, operating without spotters to correct ; their aim. The bombs went off over a wide area, many of tiiem far enough behind Alpha's positions that they could do no harm. But a few did strike closer.
,Two mortar bombs exploded almost simultaneously, eighty yards left of Lon and not more than ten yards apart. Some of the debris showered down on him. He kept his face in the dirt until the rain stopped. As soon as clods of dirt and pebbles stopped hitting around him, Lon was up and shooting again. The enemy was still moving closer. ^"lieutenant Nolan?" The voice was Lead Sergeant s*
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"What is it, Jim?" Lon asked.
"It's the captain, sir. He was hit by one of those mortar rounds. He's alive, but in pretty bad shape. The medics are with him. I guess you've got the company until he comes back. I've
already informed the noncoms in second platoon.''
"Right. How is second doing?" Lon used the head-up display on his faceplate to find the blip representing Zie-gler.
"We're holding, sir. Taking casualties, but holding."
"Good. Same here. I'll notify battalion that the captain has been wounded. I want you to get first platoon moving toward us. Right now we need them more here than guarding our tents."
"Yes, sir. I think that's a good idea. Don't know if they'll make it in time, though." Ziegler did not mention that he had suggested that course to Captain Orlis and been turned down.
Lon made his call to battalion and spoke directly to Colonel Black. Lon told the colonel that he was bringing up the company's last platoon. "Hold as best you can there, Nolan," Black said. "I'm trying to get a couple more Shrikes in, but I don't know if they'll get here in time to help you much."
Lon switched back to the channel th
at connected him with the company's lead sergeant.
"Jim, I want your advice. What if we pull in the men on either end of the line, give ourselves something approaching a full perimeter?''
"Might help, sir, if we can do it fast enough," Ziegler said. "The way we're laying now, all they've got to do is run right over us and pick us off as they go. We've got no depth but the one squad in each platoon we've had trailing, and no flanks."
"Do it. You start second platoon around on your side, three squads at least. I'll do the same with fourth on this side."
Alpha's grenadiers launched their first salvo of grenades just then, as the enemy came to within 120 yards. Lon called Weil Jorgen and told him to start pulling his CAPTAIN
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men around—the three squads that were on the front.
"We can't stop the Westers in a line, but maybe we can put up enough fire that they'll flow around us," Lon said. He switched back to his channel to Jim Ziegler. "It looks as if first platoon is too far back to reach us before the Westers do. I'm going to redirect first east.
Maybe they can hook up with Bravo if they can't reach us. If we can't hold, first would be hung out to dry if they're on their own."
"Can I make a suggestion, Lieutenant?" Ziegler asked.
"Anytime."
"Let first platoon set up behind us, maybe a little to one side or the other. If we're overrun, they can stay put as an ambush. Even if we go down, we're going to slow the Westers. That and an ambush from first platoon ought to give the rest of our people time to close in on the Westers,"
// might mean sacrificing first platoon as well as the rest of the company, Lon thought, but he realized that Ziegler would have taken that into consideration. Lon hesitated for only an instant before he said, "Okay, set it up."
/ get command of a company for the first time, and it looks as if maybe the only thing I can do is watch it be destroyed, Lon thought, in grim appreciation of the situation.
"Pull the lines in tighter," he ordered, connecting to all of the platoon sergeants. "Let's give them the nearest thing to a solid wall we can." It was a trade-off. Bringing the men closer would leave them more vulnerable to mortars and grenades, but they would present a tougher surface. If we're going to make them break around us, this is the only thing that can help.
The company's grenadiers were firing as quickly as possible, expending five-round clips in seconds, then reloading. There was no sense in trying to conserve ammunition—not to leave it for the enemy. Lon was slow to notice that the enemy's mortars had stopped. The mor-tarmen were moving forward with the rest of their troops 254
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and were too close to Alpha. They could not elevate their weapons enough to drop the
rounds that close.
Lon loaded a fresh magazine into his rifle and set another full one on the ground within easy reach. He reached along his side and unsnapped the flap on his pistol holster. Before long the fight would get close enough for that.
"Fix bayonets," Lon ordered when the leading Westers were within a hundred yards. He let off several short bursts of rifle fire before he obeyed his own order.
Second and fourth platoons had finished pivoting to the sides. Lon directed the rearmost squad of each closer in, toward the center. Everyone was still facing south, but the men on the flanks could turn quickly enough if the enemy went around the human blockade. And the squads that had originally been trailing the skirmish line could turn to face north, or either flank, wherever their fire might be most useful.
As the distance between Alpha and the enemy continued to decrease—with extreme slowness now—the number of casualties on both sides increased. Inside one hundred yards, even prone men were highly vulnerable. There was nowhere to go, no way to escape, for either side. Behind and to the right of the Westers, other mercenaries were moving closer, trying to take pressure off of Alpha, but it was not clear to Lon that they could arrive soon enough to do anything but count bodies and administer first aid to anyone who survived.
"Sara, I love you," Lon whispered after switching off his transmitter, just for that instant.
The enemy was ninety yards away when their skirmish line got up and started running forward, abandoning the illusion of safety on the ground to close quickly, firing as they came, rifles on full automatic, profligate with ammunition. Lon's men were equally abandoned, firing entire clips at once, panning back and forth across narrow kill zones directly in front of them.
The enemy was too close for many misses, but no matter how many Westers fell, there seemed to be as many ready to take their places.
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"They're not going around," Lon said on the circuit that connected him to Alpha's noncoms.
"They're going to try to run right over us."
"Nolan, there are two Shrikes coming in, but it's going to be five minutes before they arrive,"
Colonel Black said, breaking into Lon's words to his noncoms. "Can you hold that long?"
"They'll be all over us in five minutes, Colonel, maybe past us," Lon said.
"Hang tough. Bravo and a company from 3rd Battalion will hit them from the east in thirty seconds."
Thirty seconds or thirty years. It won't make much difference to us, Lon thought. Nolan's Last Stand. A man could run eighty yards in fifteen seconds, even burdened by a full load of combat gear and firing a rifle. Lon raised up to give himself a better angle of fire, holding down the trigger of his rifle until the bolt stayed back over an empty magazine. By the time he had a new magazine fitted, and the bolt run to put the first round in the chamber, the enemy was forty yards away, close enough to be in range of hand grenades. Except for the men who carried RPG launchers, every enlisted man carried two hand grenades. Those were used freely now, and they did slow the enemy down... but only momentarily. Westers fell. More moved forward into the front line and came on.
If a battalion of Westers had started the assault on Alpha Company, fewer than half were still able to fight when they closed with Lon and his men. Alpha's men stayed on the ground until the enemy was fifteen yards away. Then Lon gave the order to get up and close with the enemy. It was time for bayonets and fists.
Lon stood with his men, rifle in his right hand, pistol in the left, firing both. He dropped the pistol when the magazine was empty and moved toward the nearest Wester with his bayonet. He parried the Wester's initial thrust with the butt of his rifle, then pivoted left and slashed with the blade of his own bayonet. The Wester countered and the two men came face to face, their weapons pressing against each other. Lon pushed forward and 256
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brought a knee up into his opponent's groin. As the man doubled over, Lon kneed him again, in the head, knocking the man's helmet off. As the Wester fell backward, Lon brought his rifle around and fired a three-shot burst into him—the muzzle no more than eighteen inches from the Wester's chest.
Another Wester was coming. Lon had no time to get turned and set to meet him. He dove to the ground and rolled, coming back to his feet behind this new Wester, who had turned and started at Lon again. A bullet from the side dropped the Wester, but Lon had no idea who had fired the shot.
Lon moved toward the nearest of his own men, and the enemy. There were scores of individual fights going on, a tangle that confused the sides. Only the pattern of battle-dress camouflage and the shape of helmets allowed anyone to tell friend from foe.
At first Lon did not notice the additional DMC uniforms coming-from the left, behind the Westers. Three or four minutes passed before the remaining Westers in this section of the greater battle realized that they were in a hopeless position and started to surrender—one or two at a time.
Lon stood as he had been, his rifle at port arms, numb, almost as if he were waiting for another enemy. He was conscious only of the heaving of his own breath, and the exertion and fear he had been unable to feel during the fight.
"Lieutenant?" Lon did not respond, did not really hear
the voice or notice the Dirigenter standing right next to him.
"Lon?" He blinked, turning his head slowly. He still needed time to realize that he was being addressed, and to recognize the voice of the man next to him.
"What is it, Phip?" he asked.
"You're bleeding." Steesen gestured toward Lon's left arm.
Lon looked down. There was a gash across his upper arm. He reached across with his other arm to touch the
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wound. His hand came away bloody. "I guess I am," he said, dully. He felt no pain, nothing.
"Is it over?"
"It is here. Bravo and the lads from 3rd got to us. I guess the rest are still fighting."
How many men do I have left? Lon wondered, but what he asked was, "Dean?" Phip and Dean were the two closest friends he had left among the enlisted personnel of the company.
"He's cut up a little, but he'll be okay," Phip said.
"We got hurt bad tonight, Phip," Lon said, knowing he should start checking with his sergeants, Ziegler and the platoon sergeants, to find out how badly. But he had to concentrate on this first. Phip was right in front of him.
"We did," Phip agreed, "but we did ourselves proud. Let me put a patch on that arm, Lieutenant, before you lose more blood."
Lon started to wave off Phip's offer of help. There were undoubtedly others who needed attention more. But the wave did not get completed. Vision closed in on Lon and he passed out, almost hitting the ground before Phip could catch him.
There had been a dream, but it fled too rapidly for Lon to grasp even the vaguest sense of what it had been about when he woke. He blinked several times before he realized he didn't know where he was. What had happened was slow to present its fractured memories. Then there was surprise. Lon had not wakened in a trauma tube, ready to be released from treatment. He was on a cot. There was light around him, but not bright enough to hurt his eyes. Lon was not surprised to see Lead Sergeant Jim Ziegler standing at the foot of his bed, but the presence next to Ziegler of Major Esterling was unexpected.
"Welcome back, Lieutenant," Esterling said.
Lon blinked several times. Words were slow to form in his mind, slower to reach his mouth.