by Eric Thomson
“You did well, Tran.” He clapped the man on the shoulder.
“Buggers just stood there, sensors blinking on as we got them. It was breathtaking. For us, I mean, not for the poor idiots of First Company.”
“No reaction at all?”
“Oh, they got themselves sorted out right quick and dove into the woods on the far side of the stream. But short of climbing the cliff in full view of my position, they weren’t getting out anywhere other than through my folks. By the time it occurred to them that they needed to charge at us, they didn’t have much left that was still walking.”
Kidder shook his head.
“For all their crowing about being the best in the Fifth Orta, they sure as shit didn’t show it.”
“That’s what happens when you don’t evolve while others do.”
“Wiser words were never spoken on this night,” Kidder sonorously replied. “I’m guessing the Boss Lady will be ripping friend Norik a new and improved orifice.”
“No doubt. Make sure you don’t revert back to the old ways when it’s your turn to go through the battle run.”
“Fat chance of that.” Kidder snorted.
Decker grinned at him in the darkness.
“Glad to hear it. Now off with you. The thopters won’t wait forever.”
“Enjoy the next one, Decker.” He waved his troops into line. “Or rather, don’t enjoy it too much.”
“No promises.”
Once they’d vanished, Zack climbed aboard his skimmer and shot up through the narrow opening between the trees. Glancing at his navigation readout, he pointed the tiny craft at a ridge ten kilometers away.
Ten
Daran must have given Norik a right reaming out, because his approach to the next target, later that day, was better than he’d expected.
Too bad it didn’t last.
Decker and Daran had to physically pound on a couple of troopers who got at it hand-to-hand when the assaulting platoon took exactly the wrong way to the objective and stumbled onto one of Third Company’s defensive positions. This time, Norik had placed his heavy platoon in the right position to support the attack, but regrettably, it wasn’t quite good enough to help the unfortunates sent through a narrow gully.
The silahdars of First Company weren’t used to getting their heads handed to them like that. Norik had spent so much time talking up Nelvan superiority that they believed they could do anything, even if it was backed by poor planning and even more careless recon.
The battalion commander called a reset to the operation and forced Norik to go through all the steps again, by the book, before letting him launch his attack. Decker had stayed carefully out of sight after separating the brawlers, and he was sure Norik was cursing him to whatever gods the Nelvans believed in. It was no secret that the ex-Marine had designed the combat course and that he was lurking somewhere on the mock battlefield.
By the time Norik finally swept over the defenders after a more satisfactory performance, Decker was already perched the next ridge to watch the action from a distance. Though the battle run was as much a test of character as it was of combat skills, sticking around would only serve to goad the Nelvan and it wasn’t time for that yet. Not long after the thopters pulled out the defenders, he saw Daran take Norik aside for the after action review. With nothing more to see, Zack left for the site of the third and final tactical problem, where Norik would face the entire strength of Third Company.
*
“It hardly seems fair,” Jan Latour, the company commander, said as she handed Zack, a hot ration pack. “Even if Norik’s the tactical god he thinks he is, there’s no way he manages this one.”
“You’ve never heard of a no-win situation, I take it?” Decker cocked an ironic eyebrow at the short, brawny woman. “War isn’t fair, and some tactical problems are more designed to reveal how a leader reacts under pressure than to test his battle skills.”
“So you’re going to do this to me as well next week?”
“We’ll do something to you for sure, but you’ll have no idea going in what that is. Combat’s full of surprises, some fun, some not so enjoyable. All I can tell you is that each of you gets something that pokes at your weaknesses.”
“You’re a strange one, Decker,” she shook her head. “I’ve never seen a newly captured Commonwealther take to this slave soldier life as quickly and with as much enthusiasm as you have.”
“Adapt and overcome, Jan.” He took a bite of the protein slab. “I’m good at fighting, and if I’m stuck here until they spread my ashes over the manure pile, I might as well do what I’ve done all my adult life. Or most of my adult life.”
“True,” she nodded, eyes staring over Zack’s shoulder at a point in the distance.
Sensing that the conversation had roused something long suppressed, he contented himself with his meal and another in a long string of hot kahvass servings.
Supper taken care of, Decker walked around the company perimeter in the growing twilight, chatting briefly with the silahdars to gauge their morale and confidence. The ones who belonged to Tran Kidder’s platoon were, understandably, a bit cocky after their successful ambush the previous night, but Kidder seemed to have no overconfidence issues.
He was more worried about the platoons that had defended against Norik’s raid during the afternoon. There were still some lingering bad feelings, and he had a quick private talk with the platoon leaders to make sure things didn’t get out of hand tomorrow. Satisfied that all was ready for the next morning, he settled down on a pile of leaves and did like every good infantryman when he had a bit of quiet time: he fell asleep.
*
Zack woke with a start. The jungle was smothered in a thick blanket of mist and in the darkness, all sounds were muffled. He tried to figure out what had jerked him out of his slumber. His internal clock still hadn’t adapted to Danjor’s rotational cycle and the hour remained a mystery until he pulled on his helmet and called up the display: another two hours until sunrise. Norik’s company wasn’t due to arrive for an hour after that, even moving at best speed, yet the jungle critters had fallen silent. He felt a body stir near him.
“You too?” Latour whispered, rolling over and onto her knees.
“Something’s out there.”
“The sentries haven’t alerted,” she replied dubiously.
“If I were Norik, I’d have sent out a platoon’s worth of recon patrols. Maybe they’re here.” He breathed in deeply as if to catch a human spoor on the Danjoran air.
“Any advice?”
“I’m just here as an observer. You’re on your own.”
He slowly stood up, senses alert, and let his ears scan the perimeter. If Norik pulled off a surprise against Third Company, he might just save his bacon along with his pride, but there was no way he could have moved his entire unit this far, this quickly. At best, there couldn’t be more than a handful of patrols just beyond sensor range, staking out the position.
Latour scurried away to find the company pickets while all around Decker, troopers stirred silently as their squad leaders nudged them awake.
If Norik’s recon was the reason for Third Company standing to before time, the game was over before it had started. Of course, he reminded himself, in a no-win situation, there was never a fair game to begin with.
Decker joined Latour and her platoon leaders when he saw them coalesce in the middle of the hide. Instinctively, they made room for him in the tight circle, even though he wasn’t part of their team.
“The sentries have picked up four separate instances of movement to our front,” Latour said in a tone so low it didn’t carry more than a meter. “Scans are, as expected, inconclusive since whoever’s out there is on tight emissions control. We’re going to begin withdrawing as per plan when I’m done talking and suck them into the kill zone. They’re a bit earlier than we expected and the trap might not work if their recon finds this place abandoned, but they’ll still come looking for us. Any questions?”
“Off you go, Harry.”
Ten minutes later, Third Company left the hide silently, hoping that Norik’s recon patrols would believe they were still there. A few flameless cookers had been left behind, merrily boiling kahvass pouches, just to confuse their sensors.
“Shame, though,” Latour muttered as they trudged up a narrow path that would have challenged the best Earth-born mountain goat.
“What is?” Decker’s breath was becoming as labored as that of the other silahdars.
“Leaving all that kahvass to those arrogant bastards.”
“They can have it for all I care. It’s an evil brew.”
“Sure, but you have to admit it has a good kick.”
“That’s because it tastes so vile.” He grimaced in the darkness. “I hope your folks didn’t spike the stuff with anything amusing on the off chance that someone would be thirsty. I’d rather not see a company’s worth of soldiers puking, getting the runs or start humping trees.”
“Seriously, Decker?” She snorted softly. “You noticed yet that this outfit is kind of short on practical humor?”
“Yeah. I guess I have,” he replied, remembering the juluk pit.
When they reached the summit of the ridge, Latour made sure her company was deployed in proper order while Decker headed for a promontory to the left of the path. It would give him a good enough perch to watch the action without being in the way.
He settled down to wait for the curtain to open on the third and final problem of this battle run, wondering what would happen to Norik if he seriously screwed the pooch again in front of his battalion commander. Surely Daran wouldn’t be amused by a blowhard who failed because he couldn’t be bothered to apply the new TTPs.
An hour passed, then two, and a band of molten lead began to paint the far horizon as the sun rose behind the clouds, yet Decker sensed no movement below. Norik was taking his time, which would be nice if his recon patrols had done their job and he didn’t waste what they brought back. But if they hadn’t spotted Third Company pulling out, he could be preparing a deliberate attack on an empty hide, which would put him right under the guns on the ridge.
Although Decker thoroughly disliked the conceited Nelvan, he hoped there would be a marked improvement in his performance for the final act if only to avoid throwing the battalion in turmoil when the Atabek expressed his displeasure. He wasn’t even sure that any of Norik’s screw-ups would rebound on him personally. Their owner might just take it out on Daran for having failed to school one of her subordinates.
Without warning, the vale below him erupted in heavy gunfire. From either flank, heavy machine guns hammered the humid dawn air, underscored by dozens of grenade launchers peppering the shallow bowl at the center of the depression. It sounded like Norik was expending his ammunition at a high enough rate to run out before realizing he’d been suckered.
When there was no return fire, First Company slacked off until silence returned to the forested crags. The critters, stunned by the noise, remained carefully hidden and quiet, leaving nothing but the sound of the wind sighing through the purplish, fern-like trees.
Shouted orders rang out and soldiers in silahdar battledress cautiously advanced up the vale and to the tree line where brush gave way to a rock-strewn rise at the base of the cliff.
First Company’s radio frequency came to life.
“Nothing more than heaters and kahvass bulbs,” a rough voice reported.
“They’re here, somewhere.” Norik sounded agitated. “You don’t set a trap and then leave it without covering fire.”
“I’m telling you, whatever recon reported a few hours ago is gone.” The rough and now increasingly testy voice belonged to one of the platoon leaders, Ker Terkis. “They were here, but they’re not anymore.”
“There’s no way an entire company could have vanished into thin air. Recon would have seen them pass if they tried to exit the valley.”
“Then maybe they levitated.” The undisguised sarcasm was a sure sign that his patience with the egotistic company commander had just about run out.
Decker smiled. Terkis was, from what he’d seen, the better of the platoon leaders and apparently not shy about laying out the truth. The fact that this discussion was occurring at all and over the company net, showed the beginnings of a breakdown in the command relationship.
Without rank to impose on subordinates, all a commander had was the Atabek’s appointment and his or her own leadership ability. If the last tactical problem was to be as much a test of character as of skill, then Norik’s chances of failing looked pretty good.
“Search the cliff face. Maybe they’ve found a cave or a passage.”
Third Company had masked the path after the last trooper had passed, but it wouldn’t take much to poke through the camouflage and realize that there was indeed another way out, even if it seemed more suited to mountain beasts.
“Will do.” Truculence replaced sarcasm. “Though it may have occurred to you that our mission coordinates were wrong all along, and that Third Company only left us some tidbits to attract our attention. For all we know, they could be preparing to take us from the rear.”
Norik swore in Nelvan Anglic, his strange accent making the scatological expressions sound weirdly colorful to Zack’s ears.
Latour had been given wide latitude in deciding when and how to open fire. If Norik chose to turn around and leave the vale, she might let him go. Her mission was to stop his advance, not destroy his company. The Nelvan on the other hand, had to find and pin down Third Company so that a notional battalion attack could be mounted.
With frantic orders, Norik turned his other platoons, including the heavy platoon, back towards the far end of the valley, by all appearances sure that his worst fears were about to materialize.
For the next hour, Decker watched First Company spin around in circles, wondering what was going through Daran’s mind as she watched the company commander lose his grip on the situation. It was almost enough to make him wish she’d call an end to the battle run and put Norik out of his misery. He was three for three when it came to missing the mark.
When Terkis found the steep, rocky path at the far end of the crevasse, Norik seemed uninterested and gave the platoon leader leave to reconnoiter.
Latour let them climb up and through her masked fighting positions before springing the trap. Terkis’ men didn’t even get off a shot. They were tired, frustrated and getting more demoralized by the minute. Surrendering under the barrels of the heavy platoon’s machine guns seemed like the best thing to do. Those who wanted to play hero thought better of it when they saw Decker shake his head.
Third Company quickly collected the helmets as they disarmed them, to make sure no signal made it back to Norik. As far as he’d know, the platoon had vanished just as mysteriously as his quarry.
Decker flicked his radio over to the encrypted command channel.
“Latour took Terkis’ platoon without a shot. I suggest you end the battle run before Norik humiliates himself any further. He probably doesn’t have much credibility left with his silahdars. It would be kinder that way.”
“Agreed,” Daran replied after a few moments. “Stand Third Company down and have them, along with Terkis’ troops, start for the landing area. I’ll call the thopters.”
“Acknowledged.”
Decker headed towards the hollow between two large boulders on the ridge’s reverse slope where Latour had established her headquarters. The silahdars from First Company were sitting disconsolately nearby, though Terkis was chatting quietly with his captors.
At his approach, Latour looked up expectantly.
“I gather you have news.”
“The battle run is over. Have your troops secure weapons and unload all ammunition.” He pulled off his helmet and ran a gloved hand over his bald skull. “You’re to head for the LZ and take the thopters back to the forward operating base. Terki
s, you go with Third Company, seeing as how it makes little sense to send you all the way down the cliff and across the valley to rejoin your commander. They’ll be flying out to the FOB in due course.”
Both Latour and Terkis nodded formally to acknowledge the order, knowing that things had ended on a sour note. The next few hours might get rather interesting, but neither thought it prudent to question Decker.
With a resigned sigh, Zack made sure he had all of his gear and then headed downhill towards the small glade where he’d parked his skimmer. It was time to lay low in the command tent. A storm was coming, and he didn’t want to be in its path, even though he was responsible for its genesis.
*
Jase Resson, alone in the headquarters bunker at the heart of the FOB, looked up from his field desk when Decker shoved the door flap aside and walked in with a face like thunder.
“Bad?”
“You have no idea, XO.” Decker dropped into a folding chair and unfastened his combat harness. “On the bright side, the boys and girls from Second and Support Company have this place buttoned up tight. Couldn’t find fault with any of the defensive arrangements or the way they made sure I wasn’t some asshole trying to infiltrate.”
“Holding this place is easy.” Resson made a face. “Running that cruel gauntlet you call a battle test isn’t. By the look on your ugly mug, I’m guessing the Boss Lady isn’t going to enjoy giving her after action report to the Atabek.”
“Nope.” Decker shook his head. “If I’m right that the Atabek was figuring Norik as his golden boy, destined for great things as slave soldiering goes, he’ll have to think again. The idiot didn’t take the battle run seriously, even though he knew better. Latour was fully switched on, and her platoon leaders had his ass for breakfast, twice. The third time, he got spooked and shot up an empty position, after which he panicked and turned one-eighty on Latour. He even lost Terkis’ platoon without realizing it. At that point, I suggested we call it a day.”
Resson whistled.