by Rick Shelley
Increased speed brought increased noise, even an occasional oath. Men stumbled, sometimes fell. The lines broke and needed assistance to reform. The Dirigenters moved closer to the men they were guiding, coaxing, helping, making their own contribution to the sound level. For the moment, speed was more important than silence.
I hope we don’t get stuck with baby-sitting again, Lon thought—for about the dozenth time. There are plenty of other platoons in the battalion. No need to stick us twice.
“There’s a cold front moving in,” Tebba relayed to Lon just after three-thirty. “Clouds building up to the north and west. They might be over the LZ by the time we get there.”
“Clouds, that’s good, isn’t it? Give the shuttles cover?”
“As long as they don’t come in hot,” Tebba said. “I imagine they’ll come in soft, and from the north, slide in to the LZ slow, use the clouds as long as they can. We’re likely to have rain before the morning gets too far advanced, according to CIC.” CIC was the combat information center aboard Long Snake.
“Myself, I wouldn’t complain if we got monsoon rains,” Lon said. “We can handle it better than the opposition.”
“But our militia can’t. That makes it a wash.” Girana did not bother laughing at his pun, and Lon did not notice it.
When the rendezvous time arrived, the platoon of mercenaries and the militia were still a quarter mile from the LZ. But part of A Company and most of B and D were there. The supplies were unloaded. The men returning to duty got off. A half dozen men wounded during the evening’s fight were loaded. So were the corpses of the four Dirigenters who had been killed.
By the time the Norbankers reached the LZ, the shuttles were already gone. There was a rush to distribute weapons, ammunition, and food. The loads had to be spread around. There were no trucks. The Norbankers were given hasty lessons on the rifles they were handed—just the essentials, loading, safety switch, and so forth. Magazines were fitted to rifles, bolts were run to put a round in the chamber. The Norbankers were also given five minutes to eat a meal pack, Dirigent combat rations. None of the Norbankers complained about the taste.
“Not even a chance to sight in the weapons,” Phip said in an aside to Lon. “They’d be lucky to hit the ground if they had to.” He shook his head. “The only safe place will be behind them once they start shooting.”
“They’ll make noise, though, and that will help if we get into a firefight,” Lon said. “They’ll make the rebels keep their heads down, give us more chance to fire for effect.”
By the time everyone was ready to move away from the LZ, there was vague illumination back under the forest canopy. With clouds moving in, it was a diffuse gray light, dim, straining eyes—but it was sufficient to let the Norbankers move without tripping over each other.
“We get time to train ‘em right,” Girana told Nolan after they had started moving again, “we might actually make decent soldiers out of them.”
“If enough of them survive that long,” Lon said.
“It’s our job to make sure that they do,” Tebba reminded him. “So let’s make sure we do our job.”
For the moment, they were still moving north, farther from Norbank City. During the short rest stops that Colonel Flowers permitted—the entire battalion, less C Company, which had remained closer to Norbank City, was moving more or less together now—the militiamen were given some help with organization and the rudiments of maneuver doctrine. The Norbanker platoons were broken into squads. The Dirigenters made no attempt to choose leaders. The Norbankers had to do that for themselves. But each militia platoon was, temporarily, assigned to one of the mercenary platoons, mostly with B and D companies. They marched together, and the Dirigenters did what they could to give the militiamen training on the march and during the stops.
For once, Lon’s platoon was spared. “We’ve done our bit,” Taiters said when Lon mentioned it. “For now, at least.”
“How long are we going to stay away from the action?” Lon asked next. “We’re not completing the contract out here.”
Arlan shook his head. “This is just a guess, but I imagine we’ll go back in tonight. We don’t want to give the rebels too much time to regroup. It would be nice if we could take even two or three days with these locals, give them a chance to sight in their weapons and get used to firing them. But we don’t have time or ammunition to spare.”
“They’re still not going to be able to see at night.” Lon shrugged, even though he was not close to the lieutenant.
Taiters sighed. “They didn’t ask for night-vision gear, and our contracting officer apparently didn’t mention it, or didn’t push it. Goggles or helmets might have made all the difference.”
“And we don’t have enough spares to give them some?” “Not nearly enough.”
Freed of their responsibilities for herding the Norbankers, third platoon rejoined the rest of A Company and moved out to the left flank of the battalion. When Colonel Flowers finally called a halt shortly after nine o’clock, they were a dozen miles from the nearest point in Norbank City, in old-growth forest.
“We won’t be here long, but dig in,” Captain Orlis told the company’s noncoms. “Recon doesn’t show any hostiles within four miles but we can’t be certain. The rebels don’t have enough electronics for us to be sure of spotting them. They could have a company or more within spitting range if they tailed us out.”
Lon shared a foxhole with Corporal Girana and Janno Belzer, which meant that Lon and Janno did the digging, piling the dirt along the front and sides of the hole.
“At least this isn’t rough ground for digging,” Janno said. “Not like heavy clay. I’ve seen some dirt you almost needed to blast to scratch a hole out of it.”
“This day and age, there’s got to be an easier way,” Lon replied. Getting the sod up was the most difficult part of this excavation. Under the decaying leaves and twigs was a bed of a mosslike substance that resisted their shovels.
“There is,” Janno said. “Or, at least, there could be.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve got a cousin who works in the research and development department of one of the sutler companies. Some years back they tested prototypes for what they called a sonic shovel. You stick four poles into the ground to mark your corners, as deep as you want the hole. The thing used ultrasonic vibrations to turn any kind of soil into powder. Then you just had to scoop the stuff out, like shoveling fine, dry sand.”
“So why are we still doing it the old-fashioned way? What was wrong with it?” Lon asked.
Janno made a barking laugh. “It worked perfectly, according to my cousin, and weighed less than six pounds. It could loosen the dirt for a hole like this in under a minute, so you wouldn’t need more than one per squad. There was one slight drawback. The damned thing was so powerful that our standard sound-detection gear could hear it from thirty miles off. Dual-purpose tool. It dug the hole, then attracted the enemy for you to fight. Quartermaster section rejected the idea.”
Lon laughed softly. The two men had not paused in their digging while they talked. Below the layer of detritus and moss the ground was dry, with a soft, crumbly texture. Janno stopped digging at one point and picked up a clod of the soil, then broke it with only gentle pressure of his fingers.
“Poor soil for farming,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Lon asked. “It’s doing all right growing eighty-foot trees.”
Janno shook his head. “My guess is this is a very delicate ecological balancing act, poverty soil, all of the available nutrients tied up, everything in use all the time. Rain forests are like that, and this is almost rain forest. Even a slight disturbance to the balance could destroy the system. And farming would be more than a slight disturbance.”
“That part of your military training here?”
“No. That was freshman biology in high school. Dirigenters get to see more examples of nature than most folks do, more different ecosystems. Even modest mi
litary operations can impact an ecological system, and large-scale fighting can even have a significant impact on weather.”
“Come on. You’re jerking my string now.”
“I’m serious. Look, you had to do a lot of reading of military history at that academy you went to, didn’t you?”
“The Springs. Sure.”
“Memoirs, that sort of thing, soldiers talking about their battles and campaigns?”
“Some of that. More on the tactical and strategic stuff though,” Lon said. “I still don’t see what you’re getting at.”
“A lot of talk about the weather in those memoirs, wasn’t there? Too much rain, too cold, too much snow?”
“Well, of course, but soldiers always gripe about the weather. We’ve done that on field exercises.”
Again, Janno shook his head. “There’s more to it than that. I don’t recall the details, but we had a study done, on Earth. From the time when gunpowder became important in warfare, and especially where the use of artillery or aerial bombardment was extensive, large military operations have induced much higher precipitation levels, rain or snow, and temperature extremes, in many climatic zones. And, no, it wasn’t just chance. They studied every conflict from the fifteenth century on through the last major military operation on Earth in the twenty-first century. Once you get more than ten or fifteen thousand soldiers involved, and large numbers of artillery, tanks, or bombers, over anything longer than a few days, the weather tends to extremes.”
He used the back of the blade on his entrenching tool to pat down the dirt piled in front of the trench. For a moment, Lon just looked at his friend.
“Hearsay and guesswork,” he said finally.
“Statistical certainty, bolstered by a lot of computer simulation.”
“You studied that in high school too?”
“Why not? Military subjects are important on Dirigent. The more we know about everything that can influence a contract, the better we’re going to be.”
The Dirigenters were put on half-and-half watches. In the center of the battalion’s defended area, the Norbankers were given two hours of concentrated training—as much as they could absorb. They were taught to field-strip and reassemble their rifles, lectured on the capabilities and limitations of them. Beyond that, they were given simplified plans for responding to the most likely military engagements—again, what they could be expected to learn in such a limited time.
“It’s not enough. It can’t be enough,” Girana commented to Lon when the Norbankers were finally given a chance to rest. “We get any kind of action and they’ll get chewed up. They’ll be lucky if they only take five times the casualties they should. It could be a lot worse. I just hope it’s not bad enough to discourage the lot of them. The survivors,” he added after a pause. “Them and the rest of the folks in the capital.”
“They give up, there’s not much we can do, is there?” Lon asked.
Tebba just shook his head.
Captain Orlis briefed his lieutenants and noncoms. “We’ll be moving out at 1500 hours, heading back in. Charlie Company is drawing a rebel force after it, into the hills east of Norbank City. The best estimate we can get on the rebel force is six hundred to eight hundred, that’s from Charlie and from aerial surveillance. We’re going after them. If we can neutralize this force we’ll have gone a long way to leveling the playing field on Norbank.”
He went over the expected line of march on mapboards, and showed where Company C would try to stall the rebels, the battleground that Colonel Flowers wanted. “We can’t count on the rebels cooperating,” Orlis said in a flat aside. “And we can’t be certain that they’ll respond to any … stimulus the way that trained soldiers would, so be ready for anything.”
The militia company would be moved to the rear of the battalion once they got close to contact, held back as a reserve, then be brought in when—and if—it could be done without excessive danger to the mercenaries.
“The colonel wants to wait until we have the situation in hand, but he also wants to get the locals involved soon enough so they can feel that they’ve had a part in the victory. He thinks the morale boost that will give them could be important, not just to the ones we’ve got with us but to the rest of the loyalists as well. They need a victory. We’re to make sure they get it.” He paused, then added, “Within limits. We’re not planning to make foolish sacrifices for anyone’s pride.”
When the briefing ended, Taiters called Lon over. “Stick with me, Nolan. I’ve already told Girana. It’s time you saw what platoon operations are like. I’m going to patch your comm links directly to mine. We’ll have an open line between us, and you’ll be in on any calls I make or receive. If you need to make a call out on any other channel, you’ll have to use the override—but don’t, unless it’s an emergency, and warn me first.”
The line of march had A Company on the left, B on the right, with the militia behind them. The battalion’s D Company brought up the rear. The colonel and his headquarters detachment were in the center, ahead of the Norbankers.
From the start, the colonel insisted on a rapid pace, nearly as fast as the mercenaries would have traveled without the amateurs in their midst. “We’ve got to cover as much of the distance as we can before dark,” Lieutenant Taiters told Lon.
On the march, Taiters generally stayed between third and fourth platoons, but occasionally moved out of the double columns and ranged along the side, keeping an eye on all of his people. Lon heard him talking with platoon sergeants, squad leaders—even individual privates. The conversations were rarely more than a terse question and a minimal answer. More rarely, he would take a call from Captain Orlis, or be part of a commanders’ call from Colonel Flowers or someone on the battalion staff—the latest intelligence from C Company and continuing observations of the rebels from the shuttles and Long Snake.
All three of the battalion’s companies kept patrols out to ensure that they were not surprised by an enemy ambush. Breaks were scheduled well in advance, taking advantage of locations that the point squad found.
“You know every man in both platoons pretty well, don’t you?” Lon asked the lieutenant during one silent stretch.
“Part of the job,” Arlan replied. “Any commander needs to know the capabilities and limitations of his men, know who has special talents, or who has problems that might interfere with the performance of his duties. The better you know your men, the better you’ll do your job. It’s a cumulative process, though. Even if they move you to a different company when you get your commission, you’ll learn. No one will expect you to know everything about every man under your command the first day.”
“How far up the line does that go?”
Taiters chuckled. “I know for a fact that Captain Orlis knows every man in the company. I don’t just mean that he can match faces and names. He’s got a pretty good idea of the abilities of everyone, some knowledge of their backgrounds and families. I can’t be so certain about Colonel Flowers, but I’d bet money that he knows every officer and noncom in the battalion as well as I know my men, and probably recognizes every private’s name and face, and can place which company he’s in. And for the people he commanded on his way up, and those who’ve come to his notice for one reason or another since, he’d know a lot more.”
“Colonel Gaffney?” Arnold Gaffney was Seventh Regiment’s commanding officer. “I mean, there has to be a limit. He has more than five thousand men under his command. He can’t know all of them. That wouldn’t leave him time for anything else.”
“Probably not,” Taiters conceded, “but I bet he’s got a pretty good handle on personnel anyway. Don’t forget, before he was regimental commander, he commanded First Battalion, before that, Bravo Company of the First, and so forth. He did a stint as adjutant for the regiment as well. So he’s probably got a good idea about at least half of his men, especially those he’s been on contract with, and I’ll bet he knows every officer and sergeant—probably damn near every corporal. Re
member, our turnover rate is a lot lower than in most armies. The average length of service in my platoons is over eight and a half years, and that’s with your few months dragging down the average.”
The general direction of the battalion’s movement was south-southeast, but it did not move on a direct line. The colonel tried to take advantage of the terrain, which started to change early on from flat land to gently rolling to moderately hilly. As the ground got more uneven, the forest first became less homogenous and then gave way to alternating stands of trees and grassy areas. Occasional outcroppings of rock left some areas almost bare of vegetation. By sunset, the rest of the battalion was within three quarters of a mile of C Company— and the rebel force that was chasing it.
“We’ll take thirty minutes here,” Captain Orlis told his officers and noncoms. “Make sure everyone eats and is ready to go then. The fight could come almost anytime after that.”
13
Lon squatted next to the lieutenant, watching his map-board during the briefing that Colonel Flowers conducted near the end of the rest stop.
“Charlie has been fighting a series of small skirmishes all day,” Flowers said, indicating that company’s movements. “Staying just out of reach of this rebel force, doing what they could to draw them farther from the siege and reinforcements. The other large rebel force, the one coming in from the east, coalesced this morning, rendezvousing here.” The point he indicated was six miles northeast of the battalion. “They were apparently moving to intercept us. The last fix we had on them was here.” This point was four miles from the first, almost directly north of the battalion. “At some point today, they must have gotten word of where we were because they now appear to be coming after us. CIC has intercepted a number of transmissions from that area. We have partial translations, but they’re using a lot of code words that we can’t identify. As of twenty minutes ago, they were four miles behind us, following the same route we did. The latest estimate is that this force is about the same size as the one that Charlie’s been toying with—six hundred to eight hundred. That means that we might have to deal with sixteen hundred rebels, or more, at once if we can’t take care of the first force before the second catches up. The estimate is not all that … certain. The true numbers could be twenty percent higher and it wouldn’t surprise me.”