“Sir, they do have a battle transceiver.”
“Good. Have them set it up on some rise of ground between the communications center’s outer wall and the trenches.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wilforce turned to Rybalko, and told him what he was going to do. He added, “If we have any trouble back here, I’ll want to know immediately. Have a competent officer in a monitor booth ready to take over the transceiver.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wilforce glanced at the communicator, where Davis returned to say, “Sir, they’re setting it up.”
Wilforce said, “Good,” and walked swiftly to one of several blocks of thick-walled booths that stood at an angle to the rear wall of the command center. He stepped into one, and shut a thick door behind him.
Directly in front of him appeared a sweep of slightly-rolling ground cut by trenches where men dug slowly with picks and spades. About five hundred feet away was the forest. To right and left, the forest stretched farther away. Wilforce turned, to see behind him a faint line outlining the door of the battle transceiver booth, and, beyond that, a high wall of thick upright logs.
A little distance away, holding their fusion rifles at the ready, were two burly privates. A sergeant stooped to check the dials of a brown box near a power cable that ran back across a ditch and over the wall into the communications center. For an instant, Wilforce felt his usual sense of disorientation, and reminded himself that this was nothing more than the ordinary two-way communicator screen carried a step farther. The booth he was in had its circuitry within its walls, and its multiple screens curved and joined over the inside surface of the booth. The battle transceiver, on the planet, had its circuitry inside, and its screens shaped and joined on its outside surface. The effect was that the commander using the battle transceiver saw things as if he were on the planet, and he was seen by those on the planet as if he were actually there. The defect was that the bulky transceiver on the planet was awkward to move, and constantly in danger from every chance bullet and shell fragment that came its way.
As Wilforce watched, the sergeant made a final adjustment at his box, and abruptly there was sound. The dull clink and scrape of pick and spade reached Wilforce clearly. A voice carried to him from the trenches:
“Hey, the general’s ghosting us!”
Wilforce glanced up briefly, and pulled down a small microphone on a slender stalk. “Sergeant,” he said, and his voice carried clearly.
The sergeant snapped to attention and saluted.
Wilforce returned the salute and heard the sound of digging slow, as men paused to listen. He said, “Why are these men digging by hand? Is the trencher out of order?”
“No, sir.”
“Are all these men being disciplined?” Wilforce’s tone was cold.
“No, sir.”
“Then why are they digging those trenches?”
“Major’s orders, sir.”
A dead stillness settled over the clearing.
Wilforce said, “I want those picks and spades put away immediately. Tell the major I want to see that trencher at work out here inside of five minutes. I also want the major and his company commanders to report to me as fast as they can get here.”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant stepped back and saluted.
Wilforce returned the salute.
The sergeant faced about and set off at a run. Wilforce watched him scramble down into the ditch around the jutting log walls, climb a ladder against the walls, and pause to salute a lieutenant. There was a brief exchange of words. The lieutenant cast one glance toward Wilforce, and joined the sergeant in a headlong rush toward the inner wall. An instant later, there was the sound of shouted orders, the clank of an engine, and the crash of heavy objects being moved.
The long low trencher rose up behind the wall, a big, roughly ski-shaped grav-carrier supporting it, with three other carriers crosswise to brace the front. At the prow of each carrier bent a sweating technician, while atop the trencher stood the lieutenant, his face pale as he glanced nervously along the line of grav-carriers, and back up over his shoulder at the looming tower. He called out a series of sharp orders to the technician in each carrier, then his voice rose to a scream as one carrier started to sink lower than the rest. Then, heavily, carriers and trencher moved out over the walls, and eased down outside. The trencher trundled off the carriers with a low clank and rumble, then wheeled toward a trench where the men had just stopped digging. The trencher’s center section swung down into the earth, and a steadily increasing stream of dirt poured out the discharge to the side.
Wilforce glanced back at the walls to see a number of officers, very neatly dressed, scramble down the ladder, hesitate at the ditch, then plunge down in and an instant later reappear, several of them reaching out to steady one who stumbled and nearly fell.
As they approached, Wilforce saw that the man who had nearly fallen was the combat group’s commanding officer, his face puffy, and his expression blank and hopeless. The officers came to a straggling halt, and saluted.
Wilforce returned the salute, and said, “Major, I have heard that most of these troops are without proper ammunition or charges for their fusion weapons. Is that true?”
There was a distinct lapse of time, then Wilforce saw a faint glimmer in the major’s eyes. He started to speak.
Before he could get the words out, a pudgy captain, wearing the bright emblem of the Medical Corps, stepped forward.
“General, this man is ill. As a physician, I must forbid—”
Wilforce glanced at the captain, as a soldier looks at a blood-sucking bug in the bedding just before he squashes it.
The captain hurriedly stepped back out of the way, his teeth clicking together.
The major drew a deep breath, and said shakily, “Sir, it’s true.”
“I see,” said Wilforce, and the silence quickly deepened around him till there was only the rumble of the trencher and the faint rustle of the forest around them. This silence told Wilforce that every man who could was watching, and because of the carnivores in the nearby forest, this situation was dangerous. Wilforce chose his words with care, and spoke so that his voice would carry clearly.
“Major, there are large and dangerous animals in that forest. No doubt the men can hit them with the ammunition they have now. But they can hit them a lot harder with the proper ammunition. I want proxex, impax, and fusion charges issued immediately.”
As the major said, “Yes, sir,” Wilforce could see the faces of the men turn to glance uneasily toward the forest. This much he had expected. But this was followed immediately by a shout, the glint of a rifle swinging up, and a spatter of gunfire.
Wilforce glanced around to see a brownish form blur across the clearing, then rise in a bound that showed huge forepaws and teeth like bayonets. The fire of machine guns, and of rifles firing almost point-blank, had no effect on the creature that Wilforce could see. A quick glance toward the communications center wall showed him men with fusion rifles looking on in a sort of trance.
Wilforce brought the microphone to his lips and spoke loud and clearly, “You on the walls, there—burn that thing down!”
Belatedly, the fusion rifles swung up. In the trenches, the men ducked as the carnivore sprang overhead, whirled, crouched, and reached in with its huge paw like a bear scooping fish from a stream. There was an audible snap and crunch of breaking bones, and the huge throat muscles worked under the fur.
Then finally, the dazzling lines of light reached out from the wall. There was a sizzling crack like a thunderbolt striking close at hand. The carnivore jerked, twisted around to claw at its middle, where a dark and widening pool flowed into the earth. Then a searing line of light touched the huge head, there was a spasmodic jerk of paws, and then all that was left was a steaming carcass.
Someone shouted from the far side of the wall, facing the opposite end of the clearing.
Wilforce turned to see the major and his officers standing as if they had been frozen into blocks of ice. He said sharply, “Major, get that ammunition and those fusion charges passed out, and hurry up!”
The major blinked, then suddenly seemed to come to life. He gave rapid orders to his officers, glanced at Wilforce as if he wanted to say something, shook his head slightly, saluted, and set off at an unsteady run for the communications center. A few moments later, the trencher ate its way from the inner line of trenches toward the wall. Men began passing ammunition cans down the ladder to other men in the trench.