by Rick Shelley
“I don’t want to even hear water sloshing,” Girana told his squad after the lieutenant had finished. “Use part canteens to fill others, then dump any water that’s left over.”
That only took a minute, and that was all the time there was. Second squad was put in the middle of the three. They moved to the right, going past the encamped rebels, then turned toward Norbank City again. During part of the passage, while they were closest to the enemy camp, the men moved on hands and knees. Then they were back on their feet, at a crouch, staying as low as possible, and even more attentive to sound discipline.
Their pace now made the earlier slow walk seem like a sprint. It was rare for any of the men to take more than three or four steps before squatting for a moment, waiting. Then the squad in front would start forward again. There were no oral messages now, not even subvocal commands. Everything was done with cautious hand signs. When they got close to the rebel line, it was down on hands and knees again, and then flat on their stomachs for thirty yards of slithering across the most exposed stretch of their route.
Lieutenant Taiters had moved to the front of the three squads, and when they finally reached the squad that had been sent ahead to find a route, he went up to join the squad leader just behind the point. There was a long pause, with the rest of the platoon lying motionless, heads down.
In a brief glance ahead, Lon had seen the outlying buildings and part of the old wall that had once completely surrounded Norbank City. Trees had been felled and arranged across one gap, almost directly in front of him, not fifty yards away.
We’ll be sitting ducks if we have to go over that, he thought. He closed his eyes briefly. Even at night they might be visible to rebel sentries, and taken under fire. We could lose half of the platoon in seconds. He turned his head and lifted up just a couple of inches. Things looked more promising to the left. There appeared to be a gap—or a barricade too low for him to see it from his snail’s-eye perspective.
He lowered his face to the ground again, wishing he could burrow into it. They were between the warring factions now, and if the lieutenant could not clear the way in front of them, they might be taken under fire by either side—or both.
Is he going to get on the radio and try to raise someone inside? Lon wondered. It would have to be on an open frequency, one that the rebels might be monitoring as well. In that case, there was no telling who would get the word first to the nearest armed men. Maybe he’s going to send one man in ahead, Lon thought then. Hope one man can get to the barricade and get the message to the defenders. And be believed.
Twenty minutes. Twenty-five. Lon felt as if he were about to drown in his own sweat. He noted when thirty minutes had passed—half an hour of waiting, not knowing what was going on. If they did not get going soon, and get into the city, they would be out in the open between the lines when daylight finally came.
Let’s do something, he thought. Anything. The waiting was nearly unbearable. Lon felt an urge to get up and run for the city, knowing that he could not—would not. But the desire grew and demanded more and more of his attention.
Thirty-five minutes. Thirty-six.
“Okay,” Taiters’ voice whispered in Lon’s earphone. “We’re going in. Take it very slow. We’re going under a barricade at the end. The defenders have opened a spot. Close up. I want everyone head to foot. And stay down.”
Another three minutes passed before it was time for Lon to move. He followed Girana, keeping his head within a few inches of the corporal’s feet, moving exactly with him, shifting one arm and leg forward and then the other, scooting his body along the ground, dragging through the dirt like a snake, even lifting his head as little as he could get by with.
Fifty yards was a long distance to crawl that way, with a rifle over one arm and equipment on a web belt dragging every inch of the way. Before he had covered half the distance, Lon’s arms and legs ached. He felt as if he had skinned both knees and elbows, and his upper arms seemed ready to cramp. He had gone another ten yards before he could see where the barricade had been opened. Girana started moving a little faster. Nolan picked up his own pace, though it also increased his aches. Twelve yards to safety. Ten. Lon wanted to close his eyes and scurry as fast as he could over the remaining yards, or get up and run for it. But he did neither. He continued to follow Girana, holding his position, getting dirt kicked up against his faceplate more than once.
Some of the grass had been worn away under the column of crawling soldiers. It would leave a clear path, once daylight came, to show the rebels where the platoon had passed—an insulting finger pointing straight at the rebels.
As soon as Lon was under the barricade, there were hands on his shoulders, pulling him up and pushing him to the left. A few feet away, Corporal Girana was gathering his squad, counting men as they came through the barricade. Lieutenant Taiters came over and directed them to places along the wall, while the rest of the platoon continued to snake through the opening. It took another five minutes before the last one was through and two locals moved the logs back into place, closing the gap.
We made it, Lon thought. His hands started to tremble again. He worked to hide that until he could force them to be still.
9
They aren’t very disciplined, Lon thought, looking at the defenders who had gathered to stare at the mercenaries. They should be watching the enemy, not us. The Norbank government troops seemed to be quite nervous. They had been under siege by a determined enemy who might overpower them at any time. And they were amateurs. The rebels weren’t very disciplined either, Lon conceded. They fought hard but not well.
The Dirigenters broke into squads and moved apart—a safety measure. It would not do to have everyone clumped together in case the rebels chose to attack with rockets or artillery—if they had artillery, which was unlikely but not impossible. Lieutenant Taiters talked to two militiamen. Then everyone seemed to be waiting for someone else to arrive.
“Nolan, come to me,” Taiters said on a private link. Lon went over to where the lieutenant was standing with Sergeant Dendrow and several Norbankers. “We’re waiting for the garrison commander and a representative of the planetary council,” Taiters explained, still using the radio, and speaking softly enough that none of the locals standing nearby could hear the conversation.
“Yes, sir,” Lon acknowledged. “What do you want me to do?”
“For now, just stick with me. This is a part of the job you need to learn about.”
Lon nodded, then took a moment to study the faces of the nearest Norbankers. None of them wore a helmet or night-vision goggles. There was nothing to hide their drawn faces, with lines of tension and fear. The faces and bodies were uniformly thin, as if they had gone far too long on too little food. Are they still dependent on grown food? Lon wondered. After a hundred years they should be getting most of their food from replicators. Throughout the worlds that humans had settled, food replicators were the primary use to which nanotechnology had been put. Molecular assemblers could take raw materials—recycled waste products as well as any “fresh” organic material available—and produce any food known to mankind and programmed into the system. That avoided the necessity of taking months to grow specific crops or to raise livestock, which consumed food during the entire inefficient process of reaching slaughterable size.
The group was clustered next to a building, away from direct exposure to anyone outside the perimeter. Lon could see the sky beginning to show a strong hint of dawn. Daylight would come quickly. Norbank City was only four hundred miles north of the equator, even though the climate was more subtropical or temperate than tropical because of the prevailing winds off of the ocean and a polar current that followed the coastline.
Lon had been standing near Lieutenant Taiters for ten minutes when two men approached from the direction of the center of the capital. Norbank City was not excessively large, and it was fairly narrow from north to south.
“I’m Ian Norbank,” one of the men said as he reac
hed the group, “Vice Chairman of the planetary council. This is my cousin, Colonel Alfred Norbank, commander of our militia.”
Lon quickly smothered his grin. What’s so magical about the title of Colonel? he asked himself.
Taiters lifted his visor and identified himself—rank, name, and unit. He introduced Lon only by name.
“We’re glad to have you here,” the vice chairman said. “We were beginning to fear that you wouldn’t arrive in time. But where is the rest of your battalion? These few men you brought won’t make much difference.”
Taiters hesitated before replying. Lon fancied that he could almost hear the lieutenant counting to ten before he would trust himself to speak. “The rest of the battalion is close, sir,” he said finally. “It appears that your rebels are considerably more numerous, and better equipped, than we were led to believe by your representative.”
“Their numbers have grown of late,” the vice chairman said. “To be honest, we no longer have any real knowledge just how many rebels have taken arms against their lawful government. We’re unable to get reliable intelligence.”
“There is still the question of where they obtained military weapons,” Arlan said. “We were told that they had only hunting and sporting weapons of local manufacture or of early import. But they’ve used rockets, grenades, and military rifles against us. Those are hardly the hunting weapons.”
“I don’t know where they might have gotten them, unless they’re making them themselves,” the vice chairman said. “It has only been in the last week that they started firing an occasional rocket into the city here—maybe a dozen altogether.”
Taiters decided to postpone continuing that part of the discussion. Instead, he turned toward the other Norbank, Colonel Alfred. “Colonel, just how many men do you have under arms, under your command?”
He hesitated before replying. “As of sunset yesterday, three hundred and eighty-two.”
“All here in the city?” Taiters asked.
The colonel nodded. “I had men south of the river before, but we’ve had no contact with them in … weeks. Everyone who could still move was brought into the city, to defend it. As far as we know, the rebels haven’t bothered the outlying communities. But we can’t get men or supplies in from those locations.”
“What is your logistics status?”
The two Norbanks glanced at each other before Vice Chairman Ian answered. “We’re running short on just about everything but water. The rebels haven’t been able to cut our supply of that, not with First River handy. But food is getting scarce, and we have very limited supplies of ammunition for our weapons.”
“How limited?” Taiters asked, looking at the colonel again.
Once more, Alfred hesitated before answering. “On average, perhaps thirty rounds per man. But since we have no standardized issue, that varies widely. For a few of the rifle types, it may be less than ten rounds per man.”
“Hunting and sporting weapons?” Arlan asked.
The colonel nodded. “They run the gamut from .22-caliber to 9mm big-game rifles, with quite a few shotguns in the mix. All but a few are either semiautomatic or bolt-action. We have no more than ten rifles capable of fully automatic fire, and those are among the group with the least ammunition available, old 7.5mm military weapons that were surplus when this colony was founded.”
Museum pieces, Lon thought, closing his eyes for an instant. A museum was the only place he had ever seen the old European 7.5mm assault rifle. They weren’t only surplus a century ago, they were obsolete. You couldn’t get ammunition for them on Earth today without having it special-made.
“We are in dire need of the weapons and ammunition you have for us,” the colonel added.
“That’s beyond my purview, Colonel,” Taiters said.
We’re not supposed to land those until we’re sure that there’s no chance of them falling into rebel hands, Lon recalled. This could get ticklish. He was not surprised that Taiters had sidestepped the question. The only man who could change that directive was Colonel Flowers, the battalion commander and contract officer.
‘ The more immediate problem is breaking the siege on Norbank City so that we can begin to operate on the offensive,” Taiters said. “Since we landed here last night, we have faced several attacks by your rebels, one of those in considerable numbers.”
“We heard that,” Ian Norbank said.
“We were sent in to coordinate our operations with your militia,” Arlan said. “We had no secure radio channels before. Now, with us here, we can communicate and be certain that the rebels won’t be able to intercept our transmissions.”
“You want us to provide covering fire so that you can bring the rest of your troops into the city?” Alfred Norbank asked.
“I don’t know what Colonel Flowers has in mind,” Taiters said, thinking, I know damn well he’s not going to move the battalion into a besieged town. That wouldn’t get us anywhere. “ You’ll have to discuss that directly with him. That’s why we’re here, to permit that sort of communication.”
“The sooner the better,” Colonel Norbank said.
“Perhaps we should move inside first, closer to the center of town,” Vice Chairman Norbank said. “It’s almost daylight, and the rebels like to use snipers.”
Taiters nodded. “Very well. I need to see to my men first, get them settled down out of the direct line of fire.”
“It would help considerably, Lieutenant,” Alfred said, “if we could put your men straight into the perimeter.”
“I’m sorry, Colonel. I don’t have the authority to permit that. We might be ordered to rejoin the battalion as soon as it gets dark this evening, and they’ve already had twelve hours of hard duty. If there is someplace we could let them get a little rest, out of the line of fire?”
“I’ll have the sector commander see to it,” the colonel said, with obvious ill grace. But he was unwilling to argue the point. He called someone over and gave the order.
“Now, Lieutenant, if you’ll come with me?” the vice chairman suggested, gesturing to the south.
Taiters nodded. Lowering his faceplate again, he said, “Nolan, I want you and Tebba to wander around town for a bit. I need an independent assessment of the situation. You tell him what I want. I’ll go with these people.”
“Yes, sir.” Lon remained standing where he was as the others walked away. Colonel Norbank stopped and looked back at him for an instant, then continued on with his cousin and Lieutenant Taiters.
Lon switched channels to his link with Corporal Girana. “Tebba, the lieutenant has a job for us.” He repeated what Taiters had said.
“I’ll be right with you, as soon as I see that the others are in place,” Girana replied. “Just a minute or two. Time to let the big shots get out of sight.”
“Just what are we supposed to look for?” Lon asked as soon as Tebba got to him.
“Everything,” Girana replied. “All we’ve had so far is what they’ve told us. Time to see for ourselves. Keep your eyes open. We want to know what shape they’re in, any weak spots in the defenses, anything that might help us.”
“You mean like the fact that they all look hungry?”
Girana grunted softly. “Yeah. I noticed that too.”
Nolan told the corporal what Colonel Norbank had said about ammunition, and wanting the weapons that the Dirigenters were bringing them.
“I bet they want to get their hands on good stuff,” Girana said. “What’s more likely, right off the top, is that we might be able to make ammunition for the rifles they’ve got, especially if they’ve kept cartridge casings. Get a listing of the calibers they need, make sure the specs our replicators have match the weapons.” He shrugged. “Once we’re in a position to get shuttles in and out of here regularlike.”
They started walking, heading east, ready to do a clockwise tour of the city. They generally stayed away from the perimeter—keeping at least a single line of buildings between them and the defenses, moving carefully
across the gaps where they might come under the sights of a rebel rifle. But they made frequent trips to the barricades, looking at the defensive works that the government had erected, and looking at the people who were manning them. The defenders watched Lon and Tebba. Only rarely did any of the Norbankers speak to the mercenaries first. Girana did talk, being friendly, asking men what it had been like for them, occasionally getting in a question that would be of more direct use, but being casual about it all.
“Got to be careful about this,” Tebba explained to Lon. “Act too damned curious and they’ll clam up faster than spit.”
Before the insurrection and siege, most of the men who were defending the walls of Norbank City had lived beyond them. All of the homes and farms near the capital had been taken over by the rebels—or destroyed. The city had been fairly small. Most Norbankers still lived in more rural settings, overwhelmingly to the west and southwest of the city, near First River. The majority had farms or large gardens. Even within the city there were extensive gardens. But the edges, the areas with most room between homes or other buildings, had been indefensible. The people loyal to the government had been forced to concede the outskirts and pull back into the more densely built-up sections of town. Women and children were crowded into every available shelter, while most of the men either bore arms on the perimeter or did other work to help, building ramparts, carrying supplies and messages. There were more men than weapons—by a large margin.
“Everything’s built of wood,” Lon observed after they had gone around nearly half of the defended area. They were near First River. It was only there, along the river, that there appeared to be any stone structures at all.
“I noticed,” Tebba replied. “For being here a hundred years, they sure haven’t gotten very far. Little stone, and I haven’t seen any brick or concrete block construction yet, and not a hint of anything modern, like plascrete.”