by Rick Shelley
“You figure they’ve stayed primitive by choice or just circumstances?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” Girana said. “It’s not like they don’t have any money. They came up with enough to hire a battalion of soldiers and buy a lot of munitions. They must have had the money to import small factory systems.”
“Or did they just save it all for something like this?”
“Whatever. I’ve been on worlds that looked a lot more advanced after no more than twenty years. I’ve only counted a dozen floaters”—ground effect vehicles—”so far. More carts and wagons, vehicles that need animals or people to pull them.”
The entire perimeter was dangerously undermanned, a very thin dotted line. There was no sign of reserves posted behind the perimeter, just an occasional building where perhaps a dozen men might be sleeping, although Tebba and Lon did not enter any of them. “Fewer than four hundred armed men to guard the entire city,” Tebba muttered, shaking his head. “They couldn’t stand up to any kind of direct attack. A platoon could break through before they could gather enough guns to stop them.”
“Then why haven’t the rebels done it? They sure hit us hard last night. If they’d hit the town like that before we got here, we wouldn’t have anyone to work for.”
“Maybe they don’t know just how weak the government forces are,” Tebba said. “Or they just lacked the confidence. They hit us because they had to. Their best hope was to weaken us before we could join forces with the government militia and go on the offensive. Every day we’re here will make the odds against the rebels that much worse. Even if they don’t have any military advisors in, they could probably figure that much out.”
They stopped for several minutes to look at the destroyed bridge across First River. It had been made of wood, a narrow lane of planks on wood pilings—tree trunks that had been sunk into the riverbed. Only one section of the bridge, about twenty yards long, had actually been destroyed, closer to the south bank of the river than the north. The rest still stood but did not look very sturdy.
“Just as glad that’s out of action,” Tebba said. “I’d have hated to have to cross that buzzard under fire.”
“I see what you mean,” Lon said. The river was a hundred yards wide. The water beneath was no more than fifteen feet deep in the primary channel, and the current was not particularly swift, but the bridge would have been deadly to soldiers burdened by more than fifty pounds of equipment even if it did not expose them to fire from both banks. “Can you imagine getting cut off somewhere in the middle, not able to get to either shore?”
“I can imagine a lot of men drowning before they could shed enough weight,” Tebba said, very softly.
Along the river, the government forces were spread especially thin, but no more were needed. There were sentries posted a hundred yards apart. If the rebels attempted a waterborne assault on the city, there would be more than ample time to move troops to repel it.
“You know, the only hint I’ve seen of night-vision gear is a few ‘scopes on rifles,” Lon commented after they had traversed about half of the riverfront. “I know it was near dawn when we got inside the perimeter, but you’d think the men would still have them with them if they had them.”
“I imagine there are a few,” Tebba said. “But, you’re right, there can’t be many.”
“The rebels didn’t seem all that troubled by fighting in the dark. You think maybe they had more of them?”
“We didn’t find any among the dead. If they do have them, they’re more worried about retrieving them than they were about their dead and wounded.” Tebba stopped walking then. “Far as that goes, we didn’t find a lot of ammunition or weapons with the dead either. I guess the rebels are doing what they can to conserve equipment.” He stopped and looked around.
“Let’s rest here for a few minutes. Take time for lunch where no one’s likely to see us and where there’s the least danger of snipers.” They had heard occasional shots through the morning, always at a distance, never close enough to pose a hazard.
The two men spent four hours circumnavigating the defensive perimeter. They never saw any sign of a changing of the guard. Men slept at their posts, while neighbors continued to watch. Nor did there appear to be a midday meal. Water was plentiful, and consumed frequently. The day was hot enough to demand that.
All around the city, unarmed men worked at improving the defenses. Buildings away from the perimeter were being dismantled to provide materials for the ramparts. Behind that perimeter, men were also working on a second line of defense, digging ditches and piling the dirt up in front of them, filling bags with dirt and sand for redoubts, erecting new barricades, linking remaining buildings, lining walls.
“Setting up a shorter perimeter is a good idea,” Tebba told Lon. “With as few men as they’ve got, especially. But unless they’ve got the explosives to destroy the outer line when they do fall back, it won’t do them much good.”
“Even if they do, wouldn’t that just postpone the inevitable?” Lon asked. “Unless they’ve got more troops coming in to relieve the siege, we’re it. If it’s too much for us and the men they’ve got.”
“The colonel will never let the battalion get cooped up in here,” Girana said, hoping he was right. “And as long as we’re on the outside, free to move, the rebels won’t be able to squeeze this town too hard. If worse comes to worst, we can hold on for the month it would take to get a message rocket back to Dirigent and for reinforcements to reach us.” He paused, then added, “But that would be one hell of a hairy beast.”
10
Lieutenant Taiters listened to Girana’s report, with a few additions by Nolan. He asked questions. After Taiters was satisfied that he had learned everything of value from their tour, he called Colonel Flowers. Tebba and Lon waited; the lieutenant had not dismissed them.
“We have problems here,” Arlan told them after he finished his conference with the colonel. “You’ve seen some of them. The government has fewer men under arms than we were led to expect. The problem is more a shortage of weapons and ammunition than warm, willing bodies. They’ve got more people who could fight if they had something to fight with. And food is a problem. The people cooped up in this town have been on half rations for three weeks, and it’s going to get worse. They don’t have enough armed troops to defend their perimeter, so we can’t co-opt any of them to move against the rebels. And we can’t count on being able to land weapons and ammunition inside the town. First of all, the rebels have surface-to-air missiles capable of bringing down a shuttle. Secondly, there’s too much chance of Norbank City falling, and we don’t want to hand the rebels enough of our weapons to arm another battalion.”
“So it’s going to be up to us to face the rebels alone?” Lon said, turning it into a question.
“It could come to that,” Taiters admitted. “But the surveillance that’s been done overnight and this morning shows that there might be a lot more rebels under arms than we thought, even yesterday. The latest estimate is that there are between a thousand and fourteen hundred rebel troops maintaining the siege here. There is another group, nearly as large, working to get into position to attack the battalion again. Colonel Flowers is doing some maneuvering as well, trying to make sure that we choose the time and place for the next engagement. The rebels appear to be moving more people this way. Our shuttles detected a number of small groups between their town and here, split up and using the cover of the forest and hills to their advantage. We can’t even estimate how many more soldiers they’re bringing in. At least several hundred, perhaps a lot more.”
Tebba Girana whistled softly. “We’re talking odds of at least three to one now, aren’t we, Lieutenant? Maybe worse?”
“Maybe worse,” Taiters agreed. “The government is finally willing to concede that the rebels are more numerous, better equipped, and better trained than their own forces. If they could get all of their troops together, they might total ten thousand or more—out of a population base of
under sixty thousand. That assumes that the entire second wave supports this rebellion, something that the government has yet to concede.”
“You mean basically all of the adult men,” Lon said.
“If we have normal colonial population distribution,” Arlan said. “And if that sixty-thousand number is accurate. There’s no reason to suspect that it’s any more accurate than the other numbers the government here gave us.”
“I know I’m outta line, sir,” Tebba said, “but hasn’t the misinformation reached the point where we could walk away honorably? I mean, the Norbankers gave us a lot of bum data, maybe lied to us. This is a job for a full regiment or more, not just one battalion, even us.”
Taiters shared Girana’s opinion, but the decision had already been taken. “The contract has been amended again,” he said. “We’re going to stick it out.” He did not share all of the information with Girana and Nolan. Colonel Flowers was taking precautions. An MR—message rocket—had already been sent to Dirigent with the latest information. Flowers had not requested reinforcements—yet—but he had included a conditional request: “If any six-day period goes by without a progress report, we will almost certainly be in big trouble and require substantial assistance.”
“So what do we do now?” Lon asked.
“The Norbankers are going to assemble a company of men who are willing and able to fight but who don’t have weapons. We’re going to break them out of the perimeter, get them someplace where we can bring in weapons, ammunition, and food. I know that goes against the idea of not putting our weaponry in danger of falling into rebel hands, but they’ll be outside the city, and the locals won’t be operating independently. Our people will be with them. If it works the first time, we’ll do it again, a company at a time. Do what basic training we can in too little time. Altogether, there are probably a thousand, maybe twelve hundred, men available here in the city. If we can get to some of the outlying villages, we might be able to find even more people who are loyal to the government, but we only brought enough weapons to equip one battalion, so there wouldn’t be much point in the rest—unless we capture significant stores of rebel weapons, and once we do that, the danger might be over.”
“The rebels aren’t likely to sit back and let us do any of that, sir,” Lon said. “We might get away with it one time, but once they see what we’re doing … .”
“The rest of the battalion won’t be idle, Nolan,” Taiters said. “We’ll hit the rebels hard, on the ground and from the air.” The head of the planetary council wanted the Dirigenters to use their shuttles to attack the rebels’ town and the villages around it, to force them to withdraw troops to defend their families. Colonel Flowers had vetoed that immediately, almost angrily: “We don’t make war on unarmed women and children.”
“We’re still holding the aces, even if we prove to be up against five-to-one odds,” Taiters continued.
“You know, sir, it’s really not the rebels who worry me the most right now,” Tebba said. “It’s the idea of babysitting a couple of hundred unarmed men until we can bring in guns and ammo, and then having them with us when we fight the rebels. They could be as dangerous to us as they’ll be to the rebels.”
Taiters laughed. “Then it’ll be up to us to make sure they get enough concentrated training to minimize that danger.”
“Us, sir?” Lon asked. “Our platoon?”
“The first time, at least,” the lieutenant replied. “We’re the ones inside the perimeter.”
“We’re not going to try to sneak them out the way we came in, are we?”
Taiters laughed again. His helmet was up, and Lon could see that the laughs were helping to drain tension from the lieutenant. “No. The battalion is going to attack to open up a route for us. I don’t have the details yet, but it should be this evening, not too long after dark. We’ll want to be well clear of the closest rebels by daybreak tomorrow.”
There was time to rest then. Lon slept for more than three hours. It was a deep slumber, almost unconsciousness, not the light, troubled sleep that the veterans in the squad had told him about, disturbed by the slightest noise and kept from being satisfying by fear and uncertainty. When Phip woke him, past midafternoon, Lon had difficulty getting his mind fully alert, struggling out of the sluggish stupor.
“What is it?” Lon asked, yawning and stretching, trying to force his mind back to full function.
“Our shot at sentry duty,” Phip said. “Time to let some of the other guys get a little shut-eye.”
“Anything happen yet?” Lon sat up and looked around. He rubbed at his eyes. That made them burn, so he used a little water from his canteen, leaning back to pour it on them.
“Nothing much—not in here, at least. They’re starting to assemble the locals we’re to take out with us.”
“You heard about that.”
Phip grunted. “Yeah, we heard about it, in gory detail.” In the DMC, knowledge was shared, as far as practical. Dirigenters were not mere cannon fodder, but professionals. Even the suggestions of a private would be listened to, evaluated, and—if warranted—adopted.
“That gory detail include anything about the operation the battalion’s going to run to give us a clear shot through the lines?” Lon asked, getting up to a squatting position. “When, where, and what?”
“No, but I guess the colonel has something in mind. There have been a number of firefights. One was awful damned close.”
“Any word on what happened?”
Phip shook his head. “Not that’s got down to us. What I’d like is for the whole battalion to show up. Let us move the locals into the middle of a diamond and get out to somewhere the shuttles can get into.”
Lon shook his head. He figured that he was as alert as he was going to get without more sleep. “I don’t think it’ll work like that. There are too many hostiles around. It’ll do more good if the battalion works to keep them away from us.”
“I hope they at least cut loose the rest of the company to help,” Phip said. “We’re going to be leading the blind, taking them out after dark without night-vision gear. They’ll make a racket, and we’ll be lucky to cover a mile an hour, even if the rebels aren’t on our butts every inch of the way.”
“Sounds like you’re not too happy with the arrangements,” Lon said. It worried him too.
“Not a damn bit happy,” Phip conceded. “Not with any of it. I think we should go back to the ship until we can bring in enough men to do the job the local yokels want us to do. Or just leave them to their own devices after the bum information they gave us.”
Lon looked at the ground, then shook his head slowly. “No, it’s better to get it over with. Weren’t you the one who told me that we’d be able to take ten-to-one odds against the sort of opposition we’re likely to meet on a contract like this?”
“If I did, I wasn’t sober,” Phip said. “Look, we’re in this like it’s just a business, remember? Last stands are bad for business, and they don’t do the soldiers on the ground a damned bit of good either.”
“Put in for two weeks’ furlough,” Lon suggested. “I’m sure the lieutenant could use a good laugh.”
“Furlough? This town hasn’t even got a bar that’s open. They’ve commandeered all of the alcohol for medical use. That’s how primitive this rock is.”
The squad did not walk sentry tours, or stand at specific guard posts. The platoon was away from the perimeter. It was just necessary to keep a few men up and ready to use their weapons to protect the rest of the platoon for the minute or two it would take them to wake and respond if an attack came.
They were not far from where the company of unarmed Norbankers was being assembled, where they had cover from the buildings between them and the front line. They were not completely unarmed, but their weapons were knives and clubs. Lon saw one man with a compound bow and a quiver of arrows. That might come in handy, Lon thought, nodding to himself. I can think of times when that might be the weapon of choice. Be better with nigh
t-vision goggles, though, or a helmet.
He stared at the archer for a moment, wondering if the Corps ever used weapons so primitive. Can’t hurt to mention the possibility, he decided. That would have to wait, though. Lieutenant Taiters had finally decided to try to get an hour’s sleep himself. Lead Sergeant Dendrow was awake but occupied, talking with one of the groups of men who would be trusting their lives to the mercenaries that night. That left Girana. Lon went to Tebba, pointed out the archer, then asked his question.
Girana made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a chuckle. “I don’t know if we’ve ever used archers. That some of your Cowboy-and-Indian stuff from Earth?”
“I never thought of it that way,” Lon said. “Maybe it is, subconsciously. I just thought that there might be times when a silent weapon like a bow might be just the ticket. Even a beamer isn’t totally silent, and if the enemy has the right gear, a beamer targets the shooter every time he pulls the trigger.”
Girana shook his head. “I don’t know. It sounds like a cockamamie idea to me, but it can’t hurt to make the suggestion. Hell, maybe you’re right.”
Lon went back to where he was supposed to be, with Phip, Janno, and Dean. Thinking about bows let Lon avoid thinking about what might happen that night—for a minute or two at a time. He had been uneasy about the prospects even before hearing Phip’s dissatisfaction. I’ve had my blood rite. I’ve been in combat. All I have to do now is get back to Dirigent alive and without disgracing myself to get my commission. Let’s not make it any harder than it has to be.
He watched as the sun dropped toward the horizon. Somewhere, fairly close, a firefight was going on—rifles, grenades, and rockets. It built in volume and then, suddenly, dropped to almost nothing. For several minutes Lon looked around the corner of a building toward the perimeter. He could see the smoke of this latest firefight, smoke from the grenades and rockets, smoke from fires they had started in the woods. With sunset just minutes away, there were even occasional glimpses of orange flames against the shadows of the forest.